Daniel 3:20-25

3:20 He ordered strong ¹  soldiers in his army to tie up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and to throw them into the furnace of blazing fire. 3:21 So those men were tied up while still wearing their cloaks, trousers, turbans, and other clothes, ²  and were thrown into the furnace ³  of blazing fire. 3:22 But since the king’s command was so urgent, and the furnace was so excessively hot, the men who escorted ⁴  Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were killed ⁵  by the leaping flames. ⁶  3:23 But those three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell into the furnace ⁷  of blazing fire while still securely bound. ⁸ 

God Delivers His Servants

3:24 Then King Nebuchadnezzar was startled and quickly got up. He said to his ministers, “Wasn’t it three men that we tied up and threw ⁹  into ¹⁰  the fire?” They replied to the king, “For sure, O king.” 3:25 He answered, “But I see four men, untied and walking around in the midst of the fire! No harm has come to them! And the appearance of the fourth is like that of a god!” ¹¹ 

¹ tn This is sometimes taken as a comparative: “[some of the] strongest.”

² sn There is a great deal of uncertainty with regard to the specific nature of these items of clothing.

³ tn Aram “into the midst of the furnace.” For stylistic reasons the words “the midst of” have been left untranslated.

⁴ tn Aram “caused to go up.”

⁵ tn The Aramaic verb is active.

⁶ tn Aram “the flame of the fire” (so KJV, ASV, NASB); NRSV “the raging flames.”

⁷ tn Aram “into the midst of the furnace.” For stylistic reasons the words “the midst of” have been left untranslated.

⁸ sn The deuterocanonical writings known as The Prayer of Azariah and The Song of the Three present at this point a confession and petition for God’s forgiveness and a celebration of God’s grace for the three Jewish youths in the fiery furnace. Though not found in the Hebrew/Aramaic text of Daniel, these compositions do appear in the ancient Greek versions.

⁹ tn Aram “we threw…bound.”

¹⁰ tn Aram “into the midst of.”

¹¹ sn The phrase like that of a god is in Aramaic “like that of a son of the gods.” Many patristic writers understood this phrase in a christological sense (i.e., “the Son of God”). But it should be remembered that these are words spoken by a pagan who is seeking to explain things from his own polytheistic frame of reference; for him the phrase “like a son of the gods” is equivalent to “like a divine being.”