IMAGE, NEBUCHADNEZZAR. “King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold, whose height was sixty cubits and its breadth six cubits. He set it up on the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon” (Dan 3:1). The image itself, said to be “of gold” was surely not solid gold but of plates or sheets overlaid with gold. There is precedent for such in religious usage of the Bible in the “golden” furniture of the Tabernacle of Moses (Exod 38:30; 39:3ff. cf. Isa 40:19ff.; 41:7; Jer 10:3ff.), as well as in classical writings (Herodotus, Histories, I, 183; Pliny, Letters 33:34, 34:9ff.) as well as Apocrypha (Epist. Jer 7, 54-56; Bel 7). The gigantic dimensions (approx. 90’ x 9'), in proportion of 10 x 1, suggest an image set on a pedestal. As to the location of Dura, scholars note three locations of that name (= Duru, enclosing wall), one of which was in the environs of Babylon (viz. Keil, Young, Montgomery). Most likely the image had been dedicated by Nebuchadnezzar to some Babylonian deity, although some think vv. 12, 14 and 18 rule this out. Montgomery and Keil argue that it was a symbol of Nebuchadnezzar’s empire and the implied charge of treason for refusing to worship the image (v. 12) lends some support to this. J. A. Seiss (Voices from Babylon) argues strenuously that it may have been dedicated to Jehovah, the Jewish God, pointing out that Nebuchadnezzar already had acknowledged His supremacy (2:47, 48). The golden calf (Exod 32) and the “Calves” of Rehoboam at Bethel and Dan (1 Kings 12:25-33, cf. Acts 17:23) represent efforts falsely to worship the true God by means of idols. If Seiss is correct, the temptation to the three He brews was thereby heightened immeasurably. Here then was syncretism of Biblical religion with cultivated paganism—the perennially most inviting of all temptations to abandon the faith, not by denial but by perversion.