Page 68 - The Prophet-statesman a Drama of Daniel

CHAPTER XVI

DELIVERANCE

No sooner had Nebuchadnezzar seen Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah hustled from

his presence, than there came down upon him a terrible sense of conviction of his guilt
and wickedness. At that moment no one in all the realm was so miserable as he. He
abhorred himself for all that he had done ― the image, the decree, the sentence of death
upon these fine, courageous young men. He now knew of them as he had long known

of Daniel, that they were his superiors and in no sense his servants. The emotion of fear
within him completely displaced that wrath, as he pondered the greatness of God that
could inspire in His servants a faith that would make them face a horrible death without
visible trace of fear. He knew that it was the same God who was known to him as Jahveh,

the Revealer of Secrets, but whom Rhea had now come to worship as the God, the only
true and living one. This was the God he had defied in the erection of the image.

He sat on the throne, his powerful body bent forward and his face in his hands as

he trembled and sobbed, “What have I done, what have I done?”

Thus he sat for nearly half an hour, until he leaped down from the throne-seat and
hastened out of the great room by a side exit and up a spiral staircase leading to the roof

of the palace, and followed at a little interval by four members of his counsel.
“Maybe their Jahveh will save them from the flames!” He murmured over and over
to himself as he ascended the stairs.

The roof of the palace commanded a complete view of the whole city. As
Nebuchadnezzar came out upon it he hastened to the west parapet and gazed intently
down Palace Way toward the furnace of the brick-kiln. His point of vantage enabled
him to see over the walls and into the great furnace itself. Even the column of smoke

and the leaping flames could not obscure his vision.

He could hardly believe his own eyes, as he saw men walking there in the midst of

the flames, as calmly and harmlessly as though strolling by the river or through the
meadow, and not three merely, but four, and the fourth, even in the midst of the
conflagration, could he discern as transcending the appearance of the three. Reeling
with excitement and yet doubting his own vision, the king turned and cried to his
counsellors who stood behind him: “Look, look!” as he pointed with shaking finger

toward the furnace. “Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire?” to
which they all nodded assent and said, “True, O King.”