Daniel 3:24-27

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 ¹  into ²  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!” ³  3:26 Then Nebuchadnezzar approached the door of the furnace of blazing fire. He called out, ⁴  “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the most high God, come out! Come here!”

Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego emerged from the fire. ⁵  3:27 Once the satraps, prefects, governors, and ministers of the king had gathered around, they saw that those men were physically ⁶  unharmed by the fire. ⁷  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!

[3:24]  ¹ tn Aram “we threw…bound.”

[3:24]  ² tn Aram “into the midst of.”

[3:25]  ³ 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]  ⁴ tn Aram “answered and said.”

[3:26]  ⁵ tn Aram “from the midst of the fire.” For stylistic reasons the words “the midst of” have been left untranslated.

[3:27]  ⁶ tn Aram “in their bodies.”

[3:27]  ⁷ tn Aram “the fire did not have power.”