Daniel 3:21

Then these men were bound in their coats,.... Their upper coats, cloaks, or mantles, as Aben Ezra and Jacchiades; though, according to the use of the word in the Arabic language, the "femoralia" (r)

Then these men were bound in their coats, their hosen, and their hats, and their other garments, and were cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. Coats ... hosen ... hats.

This is observable and wonderful, that the fire should not catch their garments, being the most obnoxious to it.

Daniel 3:21 Then these men were bound in their coats, their hosen, and their hats, and their [other] garments, and were cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace.Ver. 21. So these men were bound in their coats, &c.] Which, for haste of the execution, were never taken off, as is usually done. But these executioners were swift to shed blood, and had blood again to drink, for they were worthy.

(21) Their coats.—The dresses spoken of here correspond with what Herodotus tells us (i. 195) of the Babylonian costume. As far as can be determined from the etymology of the words, the “coat” was an under-clothing, which covered the whole body; the “hose” was some species of tunic—something “spread out” over the under-clothing; the “hat” (the only one of the three words of which no Hebrew root exists (see 1 Chronicles 15:27), was a sort of cloak, used probably for State occasions only.

Verse 21. Their hats] This word, hat, is found only in this place in the Old Testament. The word סרבל sarbal properly means an outer garment. Herodotus, who lived about one hundred years after Daniel, says, "the dress of the Babylonians consisted of a tunic of linen reaching down to the feet; over this a tunic of woollen; and over all a white short cloak or mantle, χλανιδιον; and on their heads they wore turbans, μιτρησι." Following this, Mr. Parkhurst translates the verse thus: "Then these three men were bound [בסרבליהון besarbaleyhon] in their CLOAKS, [פמישיהון patesheyhon] their TURBANS, [וכרבלתהון vecharbelathehon] and in their UPPER (woollen) TUNICS, [ולבושיהון ulebushehon] and their UNDER (linen) TUNICS." And as, according to this interpretation, their sarbaley were their outermost garments, we see the propriety with which it is observed at Daniel 3:27 that these were not changed by the fire.

21. coats] The meaning of the Aram. sarbβl (only here and Daniel 3:27) is uncertain (see the very full discussion in Ges. Thesaurus); but on the whole mantles is the most probable. This is the sense which the word has in the Talmud[230], in which it occurs frequently (Ges. p. 971; Levy, NHWB[231], s.v.), so that it has ancient usage in its favour. On the other hand, Aq. and Theod. (σαράβαρα), LXX. in Daniel 3:27 (94), Symm. (ἀναξυρίδες), Pesh., express the meaning trousers (though of a looser kind than those worn by us),—an article of dress known independently (from Herod., and other authorities) to have been worn at least by the ancient Scythians and Persians, and to have been called by them σαράβαρα. The word, in the same sense, passed into Arabic, in the form sirwβl (e.g. in Saadyah’s version of Lev 6:3), as well as into several of the Romance languages. In both these senses the word may be originally Persian: in that of mantle, meaning properly (according to Andreas) a head-covering (* sarabβra), for which in Persia the peasants often use their mantle; in that of trousers, corresponding to the Mod. Pers. shalwβr, ‘under-breeches.’ The Syriac form of σαράβαρα has however a different sibilant from the one which is here used; and, as Mr Stanley A. Cook remarks[232], ‘mantles, long flowing robes, and therefore extremely liable to catch the flames,’ are more likely to be specially mentioned in the present connexion than trousers, or (R.V.) hosen. [230] And so also, as a loan-word from the Aram., the Arabic sirbβl: see Frδnkel, Aram. Fremdwφrter im Arab. (1886), p. 47. [231] HWB. M. Levy, Neuhebrδisches und Chaldδisches Wφrterbuch, 1876–89. [232] ‘On the articles of dress mentioned in Daniel 3:21,’ in the Journ. of Philology, xxvi. (1899), p. 306 ff.their hosen] Another uncertain word (Aram. paṭ ?ṭ ?ish). Sept. and Theod. render τιάραι, ‘turbans’; Pesh. uses the same word, which, however, seems otherwise to be known only to the Syriac lexicographers, who explain it sometimes as a ‘tunic,’ sometimes as ‘trousers,’ sometimes as a kind of ‘gaiter’ (Payne Smit[233] Thes. Syr. col. 3098). R.V. tunics; marg. ‘Or, turbans.’ [233] yne Smith R. Payne Smith, Thesaurus Syriacus.hats] The rendering hats (or caps) is supported by the fact that the same word karbβl (in the fem.) seems in post-Bibl. Hebrew (Levy, s.v.) to denote some kind of covering for the head, and means certainly, both in the Talmud and in Syriac (P.S[234] 1810), the comb of a cock. Others, comparing what is apparently the cognate verb in 1 Chronicles 15:27, render mantle; but the text of the passage quoted is uncertain. [234] .S. R. Payne Smith, Thesaurus Syriacus.

Then these men were bound in their coats - They were seized just as they were. No time was given them for preparation; no change was made in their dress.

21. “Then these men were bound in their hosen [‘coats,’ Daniel 3:27; rather ‘cloaks,’ or perhaps ‘trousers,’ Syr.], their tunics [margin, ‘turbans’], and their mantles, and their other garments” (R.V.).