Daniel 3 tells the story of a martyrdom, in the original sense of the Greek word martyria, “witness-bearing.” Like the other court tales in Daniel 1–7, this one assumes that gentile kings will sometimes attempt to co-opt the law, helpful institutions, and even religion for their own ends. They will surround themselves with flatterers and toadies eager to crush righteous (or even halfway decent) people who get in the overlord’s way. Such is the way of the world in which Jews under foreign rule found themselves. This theme also appears in roughly contemporary books like Tobit, Judith, and 1–2 Maccabees.
The story itself follows a simple plotline:
(a) Nebuchadnezzar erects an absurdly narrow statue for everyone to pray to, and the three Jews Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refuse (verses 1–12);
(b) he confronts them, and they testify to their faith and his impotence before God (verses 13–18);
(c) he pitches them into a furnace, choosing a particularly gruesome mode of death (verses 19–23);
(d) the king notices they have not died and removes them from the furnace (verses 24–27);
and finally (e), the king praises YHWH and promotes Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (verses 28–30).
This basic structure is the same as that of the various court tales in chapters 2–7, and it reflects the oral, folkloric pattern of the storytelling that lies just behind this part of the book of Daniel.
Between verses 23 and 24, the Septuagint inserts two interrelated prayers by Azariah and the three, along with a brief prose notice of angelic intervention in the furnace. As in the Greek version of the book of Esther, someone asked, “What should courageous, faithful Jews do in a moment of trial?” Answer: They should pray, and they should speak up. The martyr must bear witness not only to human beings of God’s mercy and power, but to God of human need and potential for righteousness. Because they reveal a deep spirituality, those prayers deserve study in their own right.
In the Aramaic version of Daniel—the version usually translated in Protestant Bibles and preached in churches—the goings-on in the furnace do not appear. Perhaps the absence is a net loss, but it also presents an advantage. The Aramaic version focuses on the king, allowing readers to see the world through his eyes. He and we see the mercy of God manifested in ways that shatter prior assumptions, highlight complicity in evil, and invite new ways of imagining the future. The king comes to see the absurdity of his state-sponsored coercive religion, not because the idol has no power, but because whatever power it has pales in comparison to that of a God who can preserve lives in a literal furnace (much less the metaphorical furnaces in which we all can find ourselves).
The story draws readers toward faithfulness primarily through two speeches. The first comes from the mouth of the three in verses 16–18. These men begin in a way the king must have found insolent. They address him by name without any polite circumlocutions, and they insist they do not owe him an answer when he challenges their refusal to join the elaborate ritual of worshiping the idol. They then go on to say that “the God whom we serve is able to rescue us” from even the most horrifying danger. In other words, they assert that the king’s construction of reality and his own place in it rests on faulty assumptions about both fact and value.
They conclude by underlining their superior moral courage by accepting the possibility that God might not rescue them, but nevertheless, the potential for “failure” will not deter them or change their ultimate fate. Their defiant answer provides a script for anyone facing similar persecution or, alternatively, the temptation to assimilate to the dominant polytheism of the ancient world.
The second speech concludes the whole story, and the now enlightened king acknowledges the superiority of Israel’s God and atones for his sins, at least partially, by promoting the three to a higher level in the bureaucracy (verses 28–29). This speech begins by noting God’s status as blessed or worthy of all honor and then proceeds to reverse the king’s earlier command. Whereas Nebuchadnezzar had decreed that “all nations” should worship his god, he now insists that “all nations” should avoid blaspheming the “God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego” on pain of death and attainder of their descendants.
The king does not enjoin his subjects to worship YHWH, presumably because the book’s Jewish readers accepted the reality of polytheism for most of their neighbors. The more modest objective was the end of religiously motivated persecution.
The reason for the king’s change of heart lies in his observation of the “fourth man” in the furnace. “A son of man” in Aramaic or Hebrew is simply an angel, though some Christians saw this person as either Jesus or an angel prefiguring Jesus. That reading is an anachronism, but it builds on something in the text itself. God’s intervention took the form of an angel who carried out the miracle of saving the three and did so in a way that invited the correct interpretation by the king as observer-in-chief. The king does not convert to Judaism, but he does show respect for Jews, their faith, and their God. That respect suffices.
The contemporary preacher might approach this story with caution because, in its long history, the church has both suffered martyrdom and inflicted it on others. We could learn a lesson from the Prayer of Azariah, which confesses complicity in evil. That sort of prayer is a kind of prophylactic, a vaccine against smugness or self-pity, even if the vaccine presents its own dangerous side effects. Death for faith continues today and has long done so. So, the stories of witness, whether they end in death or not, require careful handling. Yet, in the end, they feed moral and spiritual courage, qualities sorely needed in a world of proliferating would-be Nebuchadnezzars.
PRAYER OF THE DAY
God of fiery flames, Even the most raging fire could not destroy your servants when they called upon you in faith. Give us faith to withstand anything that rages to deter us from following you. Amen.
Daniel 3 tells the story of a martyrdom, in the original sense of the Greek word martyria, “witness-bearing.” Like the other court tales in Daniel 1–7, this one assumes that gentile kings will sometimes attempt to co-opt the law, helpful institutions, and even religion for their own ends. They will surround themselves with flatterers and toadies eager to crush righteous (or even halfway decent) people who get in the overlord’s way. Such is the way of the world in which Jews under foreign rule found themselves. This theme also appears in roughly contemporary books like Tobit, Judith, and 1–2 Maccabees.
The story itself follows a simple plotline:
(a) Nebuchadnezzar erects an absurdly narrow statue for everyone to pray to, and the three Jews Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refuse (verses 1–12);
(b) he confronts them, and they testify to their faith and his impotence before God (verses 13–18);
(c) he pitches them into a furnace, choosing a particularly gruesome mode of death (verses 19–23);
(d) the king notices they have not died and removes them from the furnace (verses 24–27);
and finally (e), the king praises YHWH and promotes Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (verses 28–30).
This basic structure is the same as that of the various court tales in chapters 2–7, and it reflects the oral, folkloric pattern of the storytelling that lies just behind this part of the book of Daniel.
Between verses 23 and 24, the Septuagint inserts two interrelated prayers by Azariah and the three, along with a brief prose notice of angelic intervention in the furnace. As in the Greek version of the book of Esther, someone asked, “What should courageous, faithful Jews do in a moment of trial?” Answer: They should pray, and they should speak up. The martyr must bear witness not only to human beings of God’s mercy and power, but to God of human need and potential for righteousness. Because they reveal a deep spirituality, those prayers deserve study in their own right.
In the Aramaic version of Daniel—the version usually translated in Protestant Bibles and preached in churches—the goings-on in the furnace do not appear. Perhaps the absence is a net loss, but it also presents an advantage. The Aramaic version focuses on the king, allowing readers to see the world through his eyes. He and we see the mercy of God manifested in ways that shatter prior assumptions, highlight complicity in evil, and invite new ways of imagining the future. The king comes to see the absurdity of his state-sponsored coercive religion, not because the idol has no power, but because whatever power it has pales in comparison to that of a God who can preserve lives in a literal furnace (much less the metaphorical furnaces in which we all can find ourselves).
The story draws readers toward faithfulness primarily through two speeches. The first comes from the mouth of the three in verses 16–18. These men begin in a way the king must have found insolent. They address him by name without any polite circumlocutions, and they insist they do not owe him an answer when he challenges their refusal to join the elaborate ritual of worshiping the idol. They then go on to say that “the God whom we serve is able to rescue us” from even the most horrifying danger. In other words, they assert that the king’s construction of reality and his own place in it rests on faulty assumptions about both fact and value.
They conclude by underlining their superior moral courage by accepting the possibility that God might not rescue them, but nevertheless, the potential for “failure” will not deter them or change their ultimate fate. Their defiant answer provides a script for anyone facing similar persecution or, alternatively, the temptation to assimilate to the dominant polytheism of the ancient world.
The second speech concludes the whole story, and the now enlightened king acknowledges the superiority of Israel’s God and atones for his sins, at least partially, by promoting the three to a higher level in the bureaucracy (verses 28–29). This speech begins by noting God’s status as blessed or worthy of all honor and then proceeds to reverse the king’s earlier command. Whereas Nebuchadnezzar had decreed that “all nations” should worship his god, he now insists that “all nations” should avoid blaspheming the “God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego” on pain of death and attainder of their descendants.
The king does not enjoin his subjects to worship YHWH, presumably because the book’s Jewish readers accepted the reality of polytheism for most of their neighbors. The more modest objective was the end of religiously motivated persecution.
The reason for the king’s change of heart lies in his observation of the “fourth man” in the furnace. “A son of man” in Aramaic or Hebrew is simply an angel, though some Christians saw this person as either Jesus or an angel prefiguring Jesus. That reading is an anachronism, but it builds on something in the text itself. God’s intervention took the form of an angel who carried out the miracle of saving the three and did so in a way that invited the correct interpretation by the king as observer-in-chief. The king does not convert to Judaism, but he does show respect for Jews, their faith, and their God. That respect suffices.
The contemporary preacher might approach this story with caution because, in its long history, the church has both suffered martyrdom and inflicted it on others. We could learn a lesson from the Prayer of Azariah, which confesses complicity in evil. That sort of prayer is a kind of prophylactic, a vaccine against smugness or self-pity, even if the vaccine presents its own dangerous side effects. Death for faith continues today and has long done so. So, the stories of witness, whether they end in death or not, require careful handling. Yet, in the end, they feed moral and spiritual courage, qualities sorely needed in a world of proliferating would-be Nebuchadnezzars.
PRAYER OF THE DAY
God of fiery flames,
Even the most raging fire could not destroy your servants when they called upon you in faith. Give us faith to withstand anything that rages to deter us from following you. Amen.
HYMNS
Many and great, O God ELW 837, NCH 3, UMH 148
Every time I feel the spirit (trad.)
Light one candle to watch for Messiah ELW 240
CHORAL
My Lord, what a morning, Robert Hobby