Daniel 3:19 - Meaning and Application

In these verses we see the first part of the story, the three faithful servants of God being thrown into the fiery furnace. Nebuchadnezzar had already learned something of the true God and had even admitted the wisdom of these young men, who had once proved wiser than all his own wise men. You might think their words would have softened him, or at least made him excuse them, but the opposite happened.

Instead of being convinced, he grew more angry. Daniel says he was full of fury, and his face changed toward them (Daniel 3:19). Angry passions grow stronger when people keep feeding them, and they can even twist a person’s expression in a shameful way. Nebuchadnezzar, in that rage, acted less like a king on a throne or a judge on a bench, and more like a wild bull trapped in a net. If people in anger could see their own faces in a mirror, they might be ashamed of their foolishness and turn their anger against themselves.

He did not lessen their punishment because of their rank or their honorable positions. Instead, he ordered the furnace heated seven times hotter than usual, meaning they were to add much more fuel to it. This would not make death more painful, but it would show that he thought their offense was far worse than other crimes, and it would make their death more disgraceful. Yet God turned this foolish burst of rage to his own glory, because the hotter furnace would make their rescue even more remarkable.

The king also ordered them to be bound in their clothes and thrown into the middle of the blazing furnace, and that was done (Daniel 3:20, Daniel 3:21). They were tied up so they could not struggle or resist, and they were bound in their clothing, perhaps for haste, or so they would be burned more slowly. God overruled this for the miracle, because not even their clothes were singed. They were bound in their coats, trousers, and hats or turbans, as if their clothes were to share in the punishment of their supposed crime.

What a terrible death this was, to be thrown bound into the heart of a burning furnace (Daniel 3:23). It makes the mind tremble just to imagine it. It is shocking that the tyrant could be so hard-hearted, and just as striking that these confessors were so firm that they would endure it rather than sin against God. Yet even this is small beside the second death, the final judgment. There the wicked will be thrown into the furnace where the tares are burned, into the lake that burns forever with fire and sulfur. Nebuchadnezzar’s fire could end in a few minutes, but hell’s fire does not kill, it only torments. The pain there is sharper, and the smoke of that torment rises forever and ever. Those who worshipped the beast and his image have no rest day or night (Revelation 14:10, Revelation 14:11). Their pain would soon have ended if they had been cast into this furnace for refusing to worship the Babylonian beast and his image.

It was also a remarkable act of providence that the strong men who tied up the three Hebrews and threw them into the furnace were themselves killed or suffocated by the flame (Daniel 3:22). The king’s command was urgent, and they were determined to carry it out quickly and fully. So they went right to the furnace opening, but they were in such a hurry that they did not take time to protect themselves. The added material in Daniel says the flame rose very high, but most likely God arranged it so the wind blew the fire straight onto them with such force that it smothered them. In this way God immediately defended his injured servants and punished their persecutors in the very act of their sin.

These men were only tools of cruelty. The king who ordered it was more guilty, though they still suffered rightly for obeying an unjust command. They likely did it gladly, since they were willing to serve in such cruelty. Nebuchadnezzar himself was left for a fuller reckoning. A day is coming when proud tyrants will be judged not only for their own cruelty, but also for using others to carry it out and exposing them to God’s judgment.

The second part of the story is the rescue of these three faithful servants from the furnace. Once they were thrown bound into that burning fire, we would expect never to hear of them again. Their bones seemed certain to be burned to ashes. But to our amazement, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were still alive.

Nebuchadnezzar saw them walking in the fire, and he was stunned. He rose quickly and went to the furnace to see what had happened (Daniel 3:24). Perhaps what shocked him most was the death of the men who carried out his order, because he had reason to fear that his own turn might come next. Or perhaps God gave him an inward shock that drove him to look for himself. God can strike even the hardest hearts with astonishment. The one who made the soul can make his judgment reach it, even in the case of the greatest tyrant.

In his surprise, the king called his advisers and asked if they had not thrown three men bound into the fire. It seems this execution had been carried out by order not only of the king but of the council as well. They could hardly refuse to agree with him, since he had forced them to take part in the crime and share in its shame. They answered, “True, O king,” meaning they had indeed ordered such an execution and seen it done. Then the king said he saw four men loose, walking in the middle of the fire (Daniel 3:25).

They had been freed from their bonds. The fire that did not even scorch their clothes burned away the cords that tied them, and so set them free. In the same way, God often enlarges the hearts of his people through the very troubles their enemies meant to trap them with. They had also suffered no harm at all. They made no complaint and felt no pain. The flame did not burn them, and the smoke did not choke them. They were alive and well in the middle of the fire. See how the God of nature can, whenever he chooses, control nature’s power and make it serve his purposes.

Now God’s gracious promise was fulfilled in every detail, as Isaiah said, “When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned, and the flame will not set you ablaze” (Isaiah 43:2). By faith, they put out the power of the fire, just as believers can quench the fiery arrows of the evil one. They walked in the middle of the fire. The furnace was large enough for them to walk around in it. They were unharmed, so they could walk. And their minds were calm, so they could move about as if they were in a pleasant garden.

Can a man walk on hot coals and not burn his feet? (Proverbs 6:28). Yes, they did so with the same ease that the king of Tyre, a ruler in Ezekiel’s prophecy, walked among his shining stones of fire, his precious stones that glittered like flame (Ezekiel 28:14). They were not trying to get out as soon as they found themselves safe. They trusted the God who had protected them in the fire to bring them out at the right time, so they walked around in it without fear.

One apocryphal writing tells a long story about the prayer Azariah, one of the three men, supposedly prayed in the fire. It also includes the song of praise that all three sang in the flames. Those prayers contain many moving expressions of devotion, but there is good reason to think, as Grotius argued, that they were written later by a Jew. They may show what could have been prayed there, but not what was actually part of Scripture. For that reason, we rightly reject them as not belonging to Holy Scripture.

A fourth person was seen with them in the fire, and Nebuchadnezzar said his form was like the Son of God. He appeared as a divine person, a messenger from heaven, not as a servant, but as a son. Some think he was like an angel, and angels are called sons of God (Job 38:7). In the apocryphal version of this story, it says that the angel of the Lord came down into the furnace. Nebuchadnezzar also says later that God sent his angel and delivered them (Daniel 3:28), and it was an angel who shut the lions’ mouths when Daniel was in the den (Daniel 6:22).

But some think this was the eternal Son of God, the angel of the covenant, not a created angel. He often appeared in human form before he took human nature in his incarnation. He never appeared more fittingly, or gave a clearer sign of his great work in the world, than here, when he came to deliver his chosen people out of the fire and walked with them in the fire. Those who suffer for Christ have his kind presence with them in their suffering, even in the fiery furnace, even in the valley of the shadow of death, and so they need not fear any evil. In this way, Christ showed that what is done against his people is counted as done against himself. Whoever throws them into the furnace, in effect, throws him in as well. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (Isaiah 63:9).

Nebuchadnezzar then calls them out of the furnace (Daniel 3:26). He came near the mouth of the burning fiery furnace and told them to come out and come here. “Come out, come” is how some read it. He speaks with much tenderness and concern, and he is ready to help them out himself. He now sees that he did wrong in throwing them into the furnace, so he does not send them away quietly. No, he wants to come himself and bring them out, like the Philippian magistrates later did not want to release Paul and Silas in secret (Acts 16:37).

Notice the respectful title he gives them. When he was in a rage against them, he likely called them rebels, traitors, and every insult he could think of. But now he admits that they are servants of the Most High God, the God who has shown himself able to save them from the king’s hand. Sooner or later, God will convince even the proudest people that he is the Most High God, above them and stronger than them, even in the very matters where they act boldly and arrogantly (Exodus 18:11). He will also make it plain who his servants are, and that he owns them and will stand by them. Elijah prayed, “Let it be known that you are God and that I am your servant” (1 Kings 18:36).

Nebuchadnezzar now welcomes the men he had once abandoned and is eager to honor them, because he sees they are favored by heaven. What persecutors have done against God’s servants, when God opens their eyes, they must undo as far as they can. We are not told how the fourth person, whose form was like the Son of God, left them, whether he vanished or rose up visibly. But we are told about the three men. They came out of the fire, just as Abraham their father came out of Ur, that is, the fire, of the Chaldeans, from which a Jewish tradition says he was delivered after refusing to worship idols.

When they had their release, they did not test God by staying longer than they should. They came out like brands pulled from the fire. And it was made clear to every shocked onlooker that the fire had not harmed them at all (Daniel 3:27). All the leading men gathered to examine them and found that not even one hair of their heads was singed. Here, in a literal way, was what Jesus said in a figure to encourage his suffering people, that no real harm would come to them: “Not a hair of your head will perish” (Luke 21:18). Their clothes did not even change color or smell like smoke, much less were their bodies scorched or blistered. The fire had no power over them.

The Chaldeans worshiped fire as a kind of image of the sun, so when God held back the fire, he shamed not only their king but also their god. He showed that his voice can command flames as well as waters (Psalm 29:7), whenever he chooses to make a way for his people through them. Our God alone is a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29). Other fire, if he only speaks the word, will not consume.