characteristic and instructive. Fixed determination to enforce his
mandate, anger which breaks into threats that were by no means idle, and
a certain wish to build a bridge for the escape of servants who had done
their work well, are curiously mingled in it. His question, best
rendered as in the Revised Version, 'Is it of purpose ... that ye' do so
and so? seems meant to suggest that they may repair their fault by
pleading inadvertence, accident, or the like, and that He will accept
the transparent excuse. The renewed offer of an opportunity of worship
does not say what will happen should they obey; and the omission makes
the clause more emphatic, as insisting on the act, and slurring over the
self-evident result.

On the other hand, in the next clause the act is slightly touched ('if
ye worship not'); and all the stress comes on the grim description of
the consequence. This monarch, who has been accustomed to bend men's
wills like reeds, tries to shake these three obstinate rebels by terror,
and opens the door of the furnace, as it were, to let them hear it roar.
He finishes with a flash of insolence which, if not blasphemy, at least
betrays his belief that he was stronger than any god of his conquered
subject peoples.

But the main point to notice in this speech is the unconscious
revelation of his real motive in demanding the act of worship. The
crime of the three was not that they worshipped wrongly, but that they
disobeyed Nebuchadnezzar. He speaks of 'my gods', and of the 'image
which I have set up.' Probably it was an image of the god of the
Babylonian pantheon whom he took for his special patron, and was erected
in commemoration of some victorious campaign.

At all events, the worship required was an act of obedience to him, and