The Life
Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael were three young Hebrews carried into Babylonian captivity along with their friend Daniel around 605 B.C. They were teenagers, of royal blood from the tribe of Judah, and they kept their faith in the God of Israel even at the court of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. When the king set up a great golden idol and ordered everyone to fall down and worship it on pain of death, the three boys refused. They were thrown bound into a furnace heated seven times beyond its normal heat. The Son of God himself walked with them in the flames. They came out completely unharmed — not a hair singed, not a scent of smoke on them. The Church has loved them for two and a half thousand years.
Their first test was much smaller. When the four boys arrived at the Babylonian court, they were enrolled in a three-year educational program. They were offered the king’s own food — rich meats, fine wines, every delicacy. The food was a problem: some of it was forbidden by Jewish law, some had been offered to idols. To eat the king’s food was, in some real sense, to participate in the king’s religion. Daniel and his three friends quietly asked to be excused. They proposed a test: give us vegetables and water for ten days, and see how we do. After the ten days they were healthier than all the other young men of the program. Their daily fidelity in small things was preparing them for the great test that was coming.
Some years later, King Nebuchadnezzar built a great golden statue — ninety feet tall, nine feet wide — and set it up on the plain of Dura outside Babylon. He summoned every official in his empire to the dedication ceremony, and decreed that when the music played, every person was to fall down and worship the golden image. Anyone who refused would be thrown into a burning fiery furnace. The music played. Every official in the empire fell down. Three Hebrew boys did not. They stood. The king was informed. He flew into a rage and summoned them.
Nebuchadnezzar ordered the furnace heated seven times beyond its usual heat. The flames were so fierce that the soldiers who carried the three boys up to the mouth of the furnace were killed by the heat. The three were cast bound into the middle of the fire. Then the king saw something he did not expect. He stood up in astonishment and asked his counselors: “Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire?” They answered yes. He said: “Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God” (Daniel 3:25). The Fathers of the Church have always understood the fourth figure as the pre-incarnate Word of God himself, the same Word who would later take flesh and become Jesus Christ.
Inside the furnace, walking unharmed in the fire with the fourth figure, the three boys sang. The Septuagint preserves the words of their hymn — the Benedicite. They called every part of creation to bless the Lord. “O all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise him and magnify him for ever. O ye angels of the Lord... O ye heavens... O ye sun and moon... O ye fire and heat... O ye winters and summers... O ye dews and storms of snow... O ye lightnings and clouds...” Every creature, every weather, every part of nature — the boys called it all to praise. The Church has taken their hymn into the Sunday Matins service as the Seventh and Eighth Odes of every canon. Every Sunday morning, the Church sings what those three boys sang in the fire.
Nebuchadnezzar walked closer to the furnace and called the three boys out by name: “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, ye servants of the most high God, come forth, and come hither.” They walked out. The crowd inspected them. The fire had not touched their bodies. Not a hair on their heads was singed. Their clothing was unharmed. There was no smell of fire on them at all. The king himself blessed the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He decreed that no one in his empire should speak against this God on pain of death.
These are the words of King Nebuchadnezzar himself when he looked into the furnace. He had thrown three boys in. He saw four people walking around inside, completely unharmed, and the fourth looked like the Son of God. The Fathers of the Church have always taken his words seriously: the fourth figure was indeed the Son of God himself, who would six centuries later take flesh from the Virgin Mary and become the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord did not just send an angel to protect the three boys. He went into the fire with them himself.
According to a tradition preserved by Saint Cyril of Alexandria, the three boys lived into old age in Babylon and were eventually beheaded along with Daniel for their faith. The story has a striking detail. When Hananiah was beheaded, Azariah caught his head with his cloak before it fell to the ground. When Azariah was beheaded, Mishael caught his head. When Mishael was beheaded, Daniel caught his head. The three friends had been together since they were fifteen years old, when they were carried captive into Babylon. They had refused the king’s food together, walked into the furnace together, sung the Benedicite together, and stood faithful together for over seventy years. They died together too.
The Three Holy Youths matter to every Orthodox Christian for many reasons. They are the great icon of authentic fidelity in a culture that does not share the faith — the Christian who lives faithfully in a workplace, a school, a family, a country that has gone its own way. They are the great icon of “but if not” — the faith that says, the Lord may or may not deliver me from this trial, but either way, I will not bow. They are the great icon of friendship in faithfulness — three boys and a fourth (Daniel) who walked together for seventy years and died together at the end. And they are the great icon of the presence of the Word in our furnaces, because we know who the fourth figure is, and we know he is still there with his servants.