Then King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his advisers, “Weren’t there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?”
They replied, “Certainly, O king.”
25He said, “Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.” 26Nebuchadnezzar then approached the opening of the blazing furnace and shouted, “Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out! Come here!”
So Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego came out of the fire, 27and the satraps, prefects, governors and royal advisers crowded around them. They saw that the fire had not harmed their bodies, nor was a hair of their heads singed; their robes were not scorched, and there was no smell of fire on them.
Nebuchadnezzar took his seat at a safe distance from the furnace and prepared to enjoy what little satisfaction he could salvage from a day that had gone sour. At least now he would have the grim satisfaction of seeing those three Hebrews pay for their crime with their lives.
But even this satisfaction was to be denied the king. For suddenly he saw several things that brought him to his feet. The three men, who by now should have been charred beyond recognition, were still alive! The fire had not been able to do what the king had expected it would. Although their hands and feet had been tied, the king saw them walking around inside the furnace. To the king’s dismay, the three men had lost nothing in the fire but their bonds. All that the fire had been able to destroy were the ropes that hindered them. There was one more thing that bothered Nebuchadnezzar. There was a fourth person in that furnace, and the king knew he had sentenced only three to the flames.
Without being told, he knew who the fourth one was. “The fourth looks like a son of the gods.” And what the king meant by that we will learn from his explanation: “God . . . has sent his angel and rescued his servants!” (verse 28). The God whom Nebuchadnezzar had defied had overruled the king’s puny efforts and delivered his servants who preferred death to disappointing God.
With his words “Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out! Come here!” the king admitted defeat. He who had boasted that his power to destroy was greater than God’s power to rescue now called God “the Most High God.” And by calling “Come out!” he who originally ordered the men into the furnace was now compelled to reverse what he had proclaimed would be their death sentence.
And the royal officials standing by? They who only minutes earlier had collaborated with their king in his idolatry now played quite a different role. These men—responsible officials of the Babylonian government—now were eyewitnesses of the great miracle the Lord had performed. They crowded around the three men who had been in the furnace, to satisfy themselves that what they were seeing was real. Although they originally had assembled to glorify the gods of Babylon, these officials now had to recognize the power of the true God, who had delivered his children who trusted in him.
It was amazing enough that the three men were still alive, but the miracle went beyond that. The three bore no burns on hands or arms or face or legs; not a hair of their heads had been singed; their clothing was not scorched; and— perhaps most surprising of all—they didn’t even smell like smoke.
For the officials this was an amazing miracle, something they would talk about for the rest of their lives. For King Nebuchadnezzar, God’s miracle was a humbling experience—and in the presence of his subjects! But for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the whole experience was a blessing from God almost too wonderful to believe. It seemed that only moments earlier they had been unjustly sentenced to a frightful death; they had been thrown helpless into a raging inferno. Tied hand and foot, they had fallen to the floor of the furnace, ready to let the flames do their work. It would only have taken a matter of seconds for them to die in the fire, and then their souls would be with their Lord in heaven.
But suddenly a realization dawned on them similar to the one that had dawned on the prophet Jonah centuries earlier after the sailors had thrown him into the sea and he had been swallowed by a fish. Inside the fish Jonah suddenly realized, “I have not drowned! I am alive! God has rescued me!” The men in the furnace suddenly realized they were not dead. Furthermore, they were no longer tied; they could get up and walk around in the flames. And— most wonderful of all—they became aware that they were not alone. God had sent his heavenly messenger to protect them. In their own bodies they had experienced the truthfulness of the statement in the psalm:
If you make the Most High your dwelling—
even the LORD, who is my refuge—
then no harm will befall you,
no disaster will come near your tent.
For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways (Psalm 91:9–11).
Now Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego realized why God had permitted them to be thrown into the furnace. And they wouldn’t have wanted it otherwise. They were the richer for the experience.