Daniel 3:25-27
Context3:25 He answered, “But I see four men, untied and walking around in the midst of the fire! No harm has come to them! And the appearance of the fourth is like that of a god!” 1 3:26 Then Nebuchadnezzar approached the door of the furnace of blazing fire. He called out, 2 “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the most high God, come out! Come here!”
Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego emerged from the fire. 3 3:27 Once the satraps, prefects, governors, and ministers of the king had gathered around, they saw that those men were physically 4 unharmed by the fire. 5 The hair of their heads was not singed, nor were their trousers damaged. Not even the smell of fire was to be found on them!
1 sn The phrase like that of a god is in Aramaic “like that of a son of the gods.” Many patristic writers understood this phrase in a christological sense (i.e., “the Son of God”). But it should be remembered that these are words spoken by a pagan who is seeking to explain things from his own polytheistic frame of reference; for him the phrase “like a son of the gods” is equivalent to “like a divine being.”
2 tn Aram “answered and said.”
3 tn Aram “from the midst of the fire.” For stylistic reasons the words “the midst of” have been left untranslated.
4 tn Aram “in their bodies.”
5 tn Aram “the fire did not have power.”