Daniel 3:23-27

3:23 But those three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell into the furnace ¹  of blazing fire while still securely bound. ² 

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 ³  into ⁴  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!” ⁵  3:26 Then Nebuchadnezzar approached the door of the furnace of blazing fire. He called out, ⁶  “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the most high God, come out! Come here!”

Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego emerged from the fire. ⁷  3:27 Once the satraps, prefects, governors, and ministers of the king had gathered around, they saw that those men were physically ⁸  unharmed by the fire. ⁹  The hair of their heads was not singed, nor were their trousers damaged. Not even the smell of fire was to be found on them!

[3:23]  ¹ tn Aram “into the midst of the furnace.” For stylistic reasons the words “the midst of” have been left untranslated.

[3:23]  ² 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.

[3:24]  ³ tn Aram “we threw…bound.”

[3:24]  ⁴ tn Aram “into the midst of.”

[3:25]  ⁵ 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.”

[3:26]  ⁶ tn Aram “answered and said.”

[3:26]  ⁷ tn Aram “from the midst of the fire.” For stylistic reasons the words “the midst of” have been left untranslated.

[3:27]  ⁸ tn Aram “in their bodies.”

[3:27]  ⁹ tn Aram “the fire did not have power.”