Daniel 3:6. And whoso falleth not down and worshipeth shall the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace.
1. This is the first indication we have in sacred history of so short a division of time as an hour. Shuah, “hour,” is supposed to be a vague expression for a short time, whose duration is not distinctly defined, rather than for the definite time which we understand by the word hour. Indeed, we ourselves use the word occasionally in an indefinite sense. The word is, however, worthy of notice here, because it is claimed that the Babylonians were the first to make a regular division of the day into hours. The Greeks learned it from them, (see Herodotus, 2, 109;) and probably the Jews did the same, since there is no allusion to hours among them before the time of the captivity, while afterward the use of this division of time is frequently noticed. See further note on John 11:9 (#806).
2. Burning alive was a very ancient punishment among the Babylonians, and possibly among other nations. Jeremiah mentions two false prophets who were to be put to death in this manner. See Jeremiah 29:22. The custom has come down to modern times in Persia. Chardin says that, in 1668, he saw ovens in Ispahan heated by royal command to terrify certain bakers who were disposed to put a heavy charge on their bread in time of scarcity. He speaks of the punishment of burning as recognized at that, time, refractory cooks being spitted and roasted, and bakers thrown into an oven. It is supposed by some that there is a reference to burning as a capital punishment in Psalm 21:9: “Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven in the time of thine anger: the Lord shall swallow them up in his wrath, and the fire shall devour them.”