Daniel 3:1

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In his eighteenth year Nabuchodonosor the king made a golden image, its height was sixty cubits, its breadth six cubits: and he set it up in the plain of Deira, in the province of Babylon.

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George Leo Haydock

AD 1849

Statue. It was not the figure of a man, (Calmet) the dimensions 90 feet high and 9 broad (Worthington) being disproportionate; though a man might be represented on the pillar. Some take it for Nabolpolassar, (Calmet) or for the king himself. (St. Jerome) (Worthington) But he never complains of the injury shown to his own person, and therefore it probably was meant for Bel, the chief god, chap. iv. 5., and xiv. 1. This nation adored statues, Baruch vi. 3. The Persians worshipped only the elements. (Calmet) Ochus first set up the statue of the goddess Tanais or Anais. (Clem. Protr.) Dura. Septuagint, "enclosed. "(St. Jerome) This happened towards the end of the king's reign, (ver. 98) of course the three young men might be about fifty years old. (Calmet)

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Hippolytus of Rome

AD 235

In the eighteenth year, etc. (These words are wanting in the Vulgate, etc.) A considerable space of time having elapsed, therefore, and the eighteenth year being now in its course, the king, calling to mind his vision, made an image of gold, whose height was threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof six cubits. For as the blessed Daniel, in interpreting the vision, had answered the king, saying, You are this head of gold in the image, the king, being puffed up with this address, and elated in heart, made a copy of this image, in order that he might be worshipped by all as God.

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Jerome

AD 420

statue: The idol was probably Nabu. (Fr. Most)

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Jerome

AD 420

How soon he forgot the truth, when he had just been worshipping a servant of God as if he had been God Himself, but now commanded a statue to be made for himself in order that he personally might be worshipped in the statuel Now if this statue was of gold (636) (C), and was of incalculable weight, it was intended to arouse amazement in the beholders and to be worshipped as God even though a mere inanimate object, whilst everyone would be consecrating his own avarice to it. On the other hand an opportunity of salvation was afforded to the barbarian nations through the opportune presence of the captive Jews (Col. iii), with the result that after they had first come to know the power of the one true God through Daniel's revelation of the dream, they might then learn from the brave example of the three youths to despise death [variant: might learn that death ought to be despised], and to eschew the worship of idols.

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Jerome

AD 420

Instead of "Dura" Theodotion has "Deira," and Symmachus has (D) "Durau," whereas the Septuagint renders it as the common noun peribolon, a word which we might render as "game-preserve" or "enclosure."

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Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation - 2 Peter 1:20