Daniel 3:20

And he commanded the most mighty men that were in his army.

The margin says that he commanded men "mighty in strength." This is the meaning of the original. Such men were chosen because he fancied that they might resist. These bound them hand and foot, preparatory to the dreadful fate in store for them.

To cast them into the burning, fiery furnace.

We know from other sources that the burning furnace was. method of capital punishment in vogue in this part of the world. It is referred to in Jeremiah 29:22 as an evil that would be suffered by the Israelites in captivity. It is also alluded to in Hosea 7:7, and in the apocryphal 2d Macc. 7:6. The ancient Persians employed it, and. traveler in Persia during the Middle Ages, Chardin, speaks of two ovens that were kept ready heated. whole month to burn corn dealers who raised the price of corn during famine. The furnace was. kind of large oven, made of masonry, probably resembling. modern lime kiln, or coke oven, which was filled with burning material, and into which the condemned were then thrown, at the top, from whence, also, the smoke and flames belched forth.