Daniel

Chapter 3

The Three Men in the Fiery Furnace – this is probably one of the two best known stories of the Book of Daniel. It is a story about the arrogance of a King who “would be god” and about the faith followers of the Lord God who refuse, even at pain of death, to submit to the tyranny and threats of the King.

The object of worship is to be a tall statue of King Nebuchadnezzar. The cue for worship is to be the sound of the musical ensemble. And at root, what is truly at stake in the telling of this story is the essential primacy of the First Commandment, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; you shall have no other gods before me.” The penalty for refusal to worship is tossing into the fiery furnace. In this case, at the refusal of Sadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the Kings rage was so fierce that he ordered the heat to be turned up seven times as hot and the men to thrown in. We learn that it was so hot that even those tending the fire were destroyed; yet Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were spare by the presence of a fourth being in the flames.

God honors his covenant. In the midst of their faithful response to the King; in the midst of his destructive rage; in the midst of their unwavering and uncompromising faith, God is faithful and sends divine intervention to the deadly situation. There is a bonus as well. The divine rescue and their unwavering faith in God bring the King to his knees. Following the incident, even Nebuchadnezzar comes to acknowledge the Lord God as truly God and decrees that anyone caught blaspheming the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego will be “torn limb from limb” and “their houses laid in ruins.” Nebuchadnezzar declares that there “is no other god able to save them.”

This is a story of oppression by powerful forces – and the God of Israel who is able to deliver the people from any form of adversity. This is a God who rewards faithfulness to the covenant with faithfulness in honoring his word.

The Prayer of Azariah

In the Greek version of the Old Testament – The Septuagint – there appears an insertion between 3: 23 & 24. The Roman Catholic Church, the Episcopal Church, and the Orthodox Churches include this insertion directly into the text of Daniel along with two other; Chapter 13 is called Susanna; Chapter 14 is called Bel and the Dragon. Luther considered that these books were worth reading, but now on the same level as the other Hebrew canon (the Old Testament that we know). Luther included the books between the testaments.

The first part of the prayer is a thanksgiving for God’s deliverance throughout the history of Israel. It accounts the many things that God has done for the people and the nation of Israel – the covenant people. The prayer acknowledges the righteousness of God’s judgments in handing the people over to the enemy for exile because of their sinfulness and makes an appeal to God for mercy upon the people and upon them.

There is a brief interlude to the prayer citing that the king’s servants stoked the fire even hotter. It talks of the intensity of the fire and its destructive nature of the flames upon the Chaldeans.

The second half of the prayer has been barrowed into the liturgy of the Easter Vigil, known as the Benedite Omnia (All Things Bless the Lord). Through the mouth of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego all things created come to the praise God Most High.

The Rev. Dr. Kipp W. Zimmermann

Thursday, April 29, 2004