Daniel 3:16-18: “O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer you in this matter. If it be so our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O King.   But even if he does not, let it be known to you O King, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”

These three Hebrew young men were pretty insolent to the king.  Not only did they refuse to bow down to his idol, but they addressed the king simply as Nebuchadnezzar.  Even the O as you see in most translations is not in the original Aramaic.  The text didn’t prefix it with King nor do it end with live forever. Such violation of protocol alone is enough to get you thrown into the furnace. It is almost as if these young men are daring the King to toss then into the boiler.  Even Daniel had the protocol to address the King as King and add that live forever thing.   Instead these three men simply responded with a blunt, lo chashechin. I mean old Nebuchadnezzar had to be seeing red when he heard that statement.   The KJV translates this rather nicely: we are not careful to answer you. Yea, like that is very diplomatic but that is not really what   lo chashechin means, at least in this context. In pure good old American English they looked the King in the eye (something you never did with a king) and said:  “We don’t have to answer to you.” In other words: “Take a hike.” This is followed by the words in this matter.  That is the word pithegam which is not just a matter it is a decree. It is the law.  They were telling this king that they did not have to obey his law when it conflicted with the law of God.   Put into plain language, they stood before this mighty earthly king and said: “Nebbie old boy, we don’t have to obey your laws.”

We need to look at the situation here to really understand why these three young men were so insolent and disrespectful to the king.  These three young men, along with Daniel, had earlier made a very strong impression on King Nebuchadnezzar when Daniel interpreted his dream.   When Nebuchadnezzar heard that the three refused to worship his idol he was enraged.  He called for them and characteristically would have had them cast into the furnace right away, but instead he gave them another chance. Even in the face of their insolence he gave them another chance.  This tells me that old  Nebuchadnezzar had to be spooked out with these guys to begin with.  He had a sense that he was dealing with the true God Jehovah, thanks to Daniel, and he probably was not too keen are crossing God up.   Now he finds himself confronted with a challenge before all his subjects, will he back down to this God with whom he had first hand experienced with His power and face disgrace before his subjects?  These three young people most likely knew the respect Nebuchadnezzar had for their God, which may explain their flippant attitude.   “Go ahead, try it, we dare you, our God will crush you so fast you won’t even be grease spot.” I think they had this old king shaking in his sandals, but here he was facing his entire nation.  God through these insolent young men was forcing his hand.

The next verse is little difficult to translate out of the Aramaic.  Basically, what the young men tell Nebuchadnezzar is, “If our God is able, He will deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire.”  The next word should really be then not and.  “Then he will deliver us from your hand (or your power).”    The word deliver is shazav which means to rescue, but this word is in a Piel infinitive form.  To use a Piel infinitive would really be taunting the old King because they would be saying:   “If our God is able he can rescue us from the fire, then we will really be rescued from your power.”  In other words, “If our God pulls this off, we will never have to submit to your power. It will prove who is in charge.”

It is at that point that they add their final insult to this king who dared to defy their God.  “But even if He doesn’t choose to rescue us, we are still not going to worship your gods.” The Talmud is not the inspired Word of God, but it is good historical information even if its accuracy is questionable. Still, if it is accurate then Nebuchadnezzar was really in a sweat.  Remember the story of the dry bones in Ezekiel 37:1-14?  Ezekiel was a contemporary of these three men.  The Talmud teaches that this resurrection was really an actual event.  Nebuchadnezzar had a group of prophets put to death and had their bones scattered over the desert.  God resurrected these men, not only for prophetic purposes but to make a very clear statement to Nebuchadnezzar.  These three men touched base with Ezekiel to see if they too would be resurrected but Ezekiel could not say yes or no. This is probably why  the men were not all together sure they would be rescued and why the king wanted the furnace heated hotter than it ever was, he wanted to make sure there was nothing left to resurrect and quickly burned up before God had a chance to resurrect them.

Depending on what translation you use, you kind of get the impression that these three young men fully expected to be delivered from the furnace.  However, from my reading of the text, I don’t think they were sure they were going to be rescued.  The emphasis is not on the confidence that they would be rescued, but on their commitment to not bow down to any other god.

Throughout Church History and even today there are Christians like these three young Hebrew men who take their stand for God, but they are not delivered.  Christians have been thrown to lions, burned at the stake, and in modern times, tortured, shot, hung, etc.  Like the Hebrew young men, they stood and said: “My God can rescue me, but even if He doesn’t, I am not about to deny Him.”

In this country we do not face such a decision, yet we may face a financial crisis, or health crisis.  We seem to have it set in our minds that God will deliver us if we pray hard enough or believe hard enough.  Our focus is on our deliverance.  Perhaps our focus should be like those of these three young men.  “Yeah, my God can heal me, He can restore my job, my finances, but get one thing through you thick skull that even if He doesn’t, I am still going to worship Him and Him alone.”  Rather than grit our teeth and  believe with all our might to get what we want from God, perhaps  we should grit our teeth and say: “No matter what happens, I am still trusting in God.”