1Then Darius the king made a decree, and the house of the archives, where the treasures were laid up in Babylon, was searched. 2A scroll was found at Achmetha, in the palace that is in the province of Media, and in it this was written for a record:
3In the first year of Cyrus the king, Cyrus the king made a decree: Concerning God’s house at Jerusalem, let the house be built, the place where they offer sacrifices, and let its foundations be strongly laid, with its height sixty cubits and its width sixty cubits; 4with three courses of great stones and a course of new timber. Let the expenses be given out of the king’s house. 5Also let the gold and silver vessels of God’s house, which Nebuchadnezzar took out of the temple which is at Jerusalem and brought to Babylon, be restored and brought again to the temple which is at Jerusalem, everything to its place. You shall put them in God’s house.
6Now therefore, Tattenai, governor beyond the River, Shetharbozenai, and your companions the Apharsachites, who are beyond the River, you must stay far from there. 7Leave the work of this house of God alone; let the governor of the Jews and the elders of the Jews build this house of God in its place. 8Moreover I make a decree regarding what you shall do for these elders of the Jews for the building of this house of God: that of the king’s goods, even of the tribute beyond the River, expenses must be given with all diligence to these men, that they not be hindered. 9That which they have need of, including young bulls, rams, and lambs, for burnt offerings to the God of heaven; also wheat, salt, wine, and oil, according to the word of the priests who are at Jerusalem, let it be given them day by day without fail, 10that they may offer sacrifices of pleasant aroma to the God of heaven, and pray for the life of the king and of his sons. 11I have also made a decree that whoever alters this message, let a beam be pulled out from his house, and let him be lifted up and fastened on it; and let his house be made a dunghill for this. 12May the God who has caused his name to dwell there overthrow all kings and peoples who stretch out their hand to alter this, to destroy this house of God which is at Jerusalem. I Darius have made a decree. Let it be done with all diligence.
13Then Tattenai, the governor beyond the River, Shetharbozenai, and their companions did accordingly with all diligence, because Darius the king had sent a decree.
14The elders of the Jews built and prospered, through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo. They built and finished it, according to the commandment of the God of Israel, and according to the decree of Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes king of Persia. 15This house was finished on the third day of the month Adar, which was in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king.
16The children of Israel, the priests, the Levites, and the rest of the children of the captivity, kept the dedication of this house of God with joy. 17They offered at the dedication of this house of God one hundred bulls, two hundred rams, four hundred lambs; and for a sin offering for all Israel, twelve male goats, according to the number of the tribes of Israel. 18They set the priests in their divisions and the Levites in their courses, for the service of God which is at Jerusalem, as it is written in the book of Moses.
19The children of the captivity kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month. 20Because the priests and the Levites had purified themselves together, all of them were pure. They killed the Passover for all the children of the captivity, for their brothers the priests, and for themselves. 21The children of Israel who had returned out of the captivity, and all who had separated themselves to them from the filthiness of the nations of the land to seek Yahweh, the God of Israel, ate, 22and kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days with joy; because Yahweh had made them joyful, and had turned the heart of the king of Assyria to them, to strengthen their hands in the work of God, the God of Israel’s house.
Nebuchadnezzar referred to the fourth person as an “angel.” This fourth person in the furnace may have been a Christophany or a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ.
Psalms 22 says the fathers of the Jews trusted in God and were delivered; Psalms 84 and Jeremiah 17 proclaim that blessed is the man who trusts in God.
Nebuchadnezzar, like Darius I after him (in Ezra 6), issued a decree of dreadful punishments for those who dared to interfere with honoring Yahweh.
Nowhere does Daniel say what the statue's image represents. It may have been of Nebuchadnezzar, Marduk, Babylon’s chief god, or merely an obelisk intended, as was the statue that Paul saw in First Century Athens, to honor an unknown god.
If the statue depicted a human, it must have been highly stylized and elongated because it was 60 x 6 cubits. Since a cubit is 18 inches, that would be 90 feet high by nine feet wide (in diameter). It was ten times taller than it was wide; it was about the height of a nine-story building or 15 times taller than a 6-foot man.
If the basic design of the statue were a solid cylinder, it would have contained 12.5 million kilograms of gold, with a valuation in 2025 of $825 billion. If the basic design of the statue were a cone, it would have contained 4.2 million kilograms of gold, with a valuation in 2025 of $373 billion. Even if the statue were only gold plated, while we cannot know the thickness of the plating, obviously the value of the gold would have been many millions or even billions of today’s dollars.
Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Chapter 2 thus accurately depicted Babylon as an Empire of Gold. Such a concentration of wealth was unknown in the Persian, Greek, and Roman Empires, even if the total wealth of those empires may have been greater.
One wonders what Nebuchadnezzar did with the statue after this event. Perhaps he left it standing as a witness to the miracle. Or perhaps, before the fiery furnace cooled, he melted it down to gold bars. This seems more likely. An absolute despot probably would not have relished people passing by the statue and snickering at the king’s vast and expensive idol that failed to serve as a focus of universal worship (Ps 22: 4-5; 84:12; Jer 17:7; Ezra 6:11).