During Daniel's absence Nebuchadnezzar set up an idol, and its worship
was exacted from all his subject under penalty of death by fire. The
image could not stand on account of the disproportion between its
height and its thickness. The whole of the gold and silver captured by
the Babylonians in Jerusalem was needed to give it steadiness. (83)
All the nations owning the rule of Nebuchadnezzar, including even
Israel, obeyed the royal command to worship the image. Only the three
pious companions of Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, resisted
the order. In vain Nebuchadnezzar urged upon them, as an argument in
favor if idolatry, that the Jews had been so devoted to heathen
practices before the destruction of Jerusalem that they had gone to
Babylonia for the purpose of imitating the idols there and bringing the
copies they made to Jerusalem. The three saints would not hearken to
these seductions of the king, nor when he referred them to such
authorities as Moses and Jeremiah, in order to prove to them that they
were under obligation to do the royal bidding. They said to him: "Thou
art our king in all that concerns service, taxes, poll-money, and
tribute, but with respect to thy present command thou art only
Nebuchadnezzar. Therein thou and the dog are alike unto us. Bark like a
dog, inflate thyself like a water-bottle, and chirp like a cricket."
(84)
Now Nebuchadnezzar's wrath transcended all bound, and he ordered the
three to be cast into a red hot furnace, so hot that the flames of its
fire darted to the height of forty-nine ells beyond the oven, and
consumed the heathen standing about it. No less than four nations were
thus exterminated. (85) While the three saints were being thrust into
the furnace, they addressed a fervent prayer to God, supplicating His
grace toward them, and entreating Him to put their adversaries to
shame. The angels desired to descend and rescue the three men in the
furnace. But God forbade it: "Did the three men act thus for your
sakes? Nay, they did it for Me; and I will save them with Mine own
hands." (86) God also rejected the good offices of Yurkami, the angel
of hail who offered to extinguish the fire in the furnace. The angel
Gabriel justly pointed out that such a miracle would not be
sufficiently striking to arrest attention. His own proposition was
accepted. He, the angel of fire, was deputed to snatch the three men
from the red hot furnace. He executed his mission by cooling off the
fire inside of the oven, while on the outside the heat continued to
increase to such a degree that the heathen standing around the furnace
were consumed. (87) The three youths thereupon raised their voices
together in a hymn of praise to God, thanking Him for His miraculous
help. (88) The Chaldeans observed the three men pacing up and down
quietly in the furnace, followed by a fourth the angel Gabriel as by
an attendant. Nebuchadnezzar, who hastened thither to see the wonder,
was stunned with fright, for he recognized Gabriel to be the angel who
in the guise of a column of fire had blasted the army of Sennacherib.
(89) Six other miracles happened, all of them driving terror to the
heart of the king: the fiery furnace which had been sunk in the ground
raised itself into the air; it was broken; the bottom dropped out; the
image erected by Nebuchadnezzar fell prostrate; four nations were
wasted by fire; and Ezekiel revived the dead in the valley of Dura.
Of the last, Nebuchadnezzar was apprised in a peculiar way. He had a
drinking vessel made of the bones of a slain Jew. When he was about to
use it, life began to stir in the bones, and a blow was planted in the
king's face, while a voice announced: "A friend of this man is at this
moment reviving the dead!" Nebuchadnezzar now offered praise to God for
the miracles performed, and if an angel had not quickly struck him a
blow on his mouth, and forced him into silence, his psalms of praise
would have excelled the Psalter of David.
The deliverance of the three pious young men was a brilliant
vindication of their ways, but at the same time it caused great
mortification to the masses of the Jewish people, who had complied with
the order of Nebuchadnezzar to worship his idol. (90) Accordingly, when
the three men left the furnace which they did not do until
Nebuchadnezzar invited them to leave (91) the heathen struck all the
Jews they met in the face, deriding them at the same time: "You who
have so marvellous a God pay homage to an idol!" The three men
thereupon left Babylonia and went to Palestine, where they joined their
friend, the high priest Joshua. (92)
Their readiness to sacrifice their lives for the honor of God had been
all the more admirable as they had been advised by the prophet Ezekiel
that no miracle would be done for their sakes. When the king's command
to bow down before the idol was published, and the three men were
appointed to act as the representatives of the people, Hananiah and his
companions resorted to Daniel for his advice. He referred them to the
prophet Ezekiel, who counselled flight, citing his teacher Isaiah as
his authority. The three men rejected his advice, and declared
themselves ready to suffer the death of martyrs. Ezekiel bade them
tarry until he inquired of God, whether a miracle would be done for
them. The words of God were: "I shall not manifest Myself as their
savior. They caused My house to be destroyed, My palace to be burnt, My
children to be dispersed among the heathen, and now they appeal for My
help. As I live, I will not be found of them."
Instead of discouraging the three men, this answer but infused new
spirit and resolution in them, and they declared with more decided
emphasis than before, that they were ready to meet death. God consoled
the weeping prophet by revealing to him, that He would save the three
saintly heroes. He had sought to restrain them from martyrdom only to
let their piety and steadfastness appear the brighter.
On account of their piety it became customary to swear by the Name of
Him who supports the world on three pillars, the pillars being the
saints Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Their deliverance from death by
fire worked a great effect upon the disposition of the heathen. They
were convinced of the uselessness of their idols, and with their own
hands they destroyed them. (93)