Therefore I make a decree,.... Or, a "decree is made by me" (w); which is as follows: that every people, nation, and language, which speak anything amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego; anything indecent, blasphemous, or by way of contempt: he does not give orders that their God should be worshipped or signify that he would worship him himself, and quit his false deities; no, only that he should not be spoken against, as very probably before this time he was, to the great grief of these good men; and to whom, therefore such an edict would be grateful, though no more could be obtained; by which it was enacted, that any such person, so blaspheming and reproaching, shall be cut to pieces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill; See Gill on Dan 2:5; because there is no other god that can deliver after this manner; no, not even Bel himself, as was plain; for he could not deliver the men at the mouth of the furnace, that cast in these three, for they were destroyed by the force of the flame and smoke that came out; but the true God delivered the three men cast in, even in the midst of it; this was beyond all contradiction, and therefore he could not but own it. (w) "a me proponitur edictum", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Broughtonus; "a me positum decretum", Montanus, Cocceius, Michaelis.