Abednego

“For the last time, I order you to bow to me!!” bellows the king, his eyes bloodshot with fury, and stamps his fist on the table before him threateningly. Knowing our answer will mean an imminent death, Shadrach, Meshach, and I shake our heads in refusal as one body.

 The king is not used to being denied. His breathing hard and venomous, he simply stares daggers at each of us in turn, his anger intensified tenfold by our meeting is gaze.

 A few seconds pass. The small voice of hope that he will choose not to kill us flits through my mind, but it is quickly quenched as the king breaks his stare and tells the officer beside him, “Throw them in.”

 At the officer’s order, three lower-ranked soldiers grab us by the shoulders and drag us, on account of our every limb being securely bound, toward the edge of the cliff. A turbulent, wild cyclone of fire is all that was below this precipice.

 As we near the edge, a wave of pure heat buffets past, forces me to blink away the quickly-evaporating tears invoked. When my sight clears, my breath catches in my throat.

 A field of flames, miles long, lies before me. Tongues of fire leap from the ground, making it seem as if the fire is alive. Flashes of warm yellow, deep blue, and blinding white mix themselves into a flickering dance of light and energy.

 Judging solely from what I can see and feel now, I know that my friends and I won’t last three seconds in that pit.

 As the length between us and the fire shortens, I tear my gaze away from the terrifying yet enthralling world before me. Exalted Lord, I pray, eyes squeezed shut, give me hope. Remind me that I am doing this for you, because it is better to die in a blistering furnace than to betray the God I belong to. Give me strength, O Lord. Help me. With these final words, I give you my spirit.

 I open my eyes again, just barely in time to watch the ground beneath me disappear.

  
I look to my left, and see Shadrach’s eyes shut tight in prayer. Meshach, to my right, looks at me with eyes full of melancholy, and underneath that, fear, and I am comforted to know that I will have died in the company of such fine Hebrew men as Shadrach and Meshach.

 Three more bodies follow us into the storm of fire, belonging to the three guards who pushed us over. All of them are already dead, and one is beginning to blacken.

 Suddenly, our plummet is greeted by the dancing flames, which greedily envelope us. I prepare myself for pain beyond all other, but, to my surprise, I feel nothing.

 Perhaps it’s the shock; my body may be unable to feel so much heat right away.

 However, I reach the ground, at the base of the searing flames, and still I feel no heat. Shadrach’s eyes pop open from his prayer in surprise. I glance at Meshach, unsure of what is happening, but he is already struggling out of his bonds, which are disintegrating at an alarming rate, and climbing to his feet. After brushing the ash off of his clothes, he offers a hand to me and pulls me upright, then does the same with Shadrach.

 “Meshach, what do you think —” I begin, but am interrupted.

 “Praise be to the Lord! He has sheltered His servants. Let all rejoice at His name!”

 My eyes widen. Of course — the Lord is preserving us! How ignorant I am to have not known myself.

 “Hallelujah! Praise be to God!”

 I smile and laugh, glad to belong to such a powerful God.

 Looking around me, I marvel at how we three combustible men are standing in the middle of a swirling, fiery inferno, and yet not one of us has a single burn. There is nothing else alive for miles, for the furnace’s flames have consumed everything. The God of the Hebrews is surely the true God.

 I look up to the cliff above, waving wildly at the king in my euphoria. Although it’s hard to tell through the dancing fire, I think that his expression shows a shadow of disbelief.

 He yells something indiscernible to the officer beside him, who bows and quickly leaves. When he returns a moment later, he brings with him buckets of water and slings them over the edge. Two more men join him in this, and the fire around us is quickly quenched.

 When there is nothing left of the fire, save for the scattered ashes of the three unfortunate guards who fell in with us, the soldiers throw a rope down for us. Meshach climbs first, his physical strength fueled by exhilaration from the miracle we just witnessed. Shadrach follows, and I take up the rear.

 When I reach the top, aided over the edge by Shadrach, we stand before the king for him to see.

 “Not a burn on their clothing, even,” murmurs the king, his formerly enraged face now ponderous and mollified. I notice he seems more reverential of us than before, when he’d treated us as less than dogs. Louder, he says to us, “How did you live? How is it that you’re not even hurt, though you stood for minutes in a blazing furnace too hot for any man to survive?”

 I speak for all three of us. “Our Lord and God saved us, Your Highness. It was not us who saved our own lives.”

 “The very God you insisted upon saving your reverence for,” muses the king. “This God of yours. Is He the God of all Hebrews?”

 “Yes, sir,” Meshach answers.

 “I believe that a God who can save three men from certain death may be the true God. I would like to know more about this God. Will you three inform me of His ways?”

 Shadrach nods vigorously. He’s the one who knows Moses’s Laws inside and out. “We would be glad to, Your Highness.”

 The king smiles briefly, then quickly turns to his scribe, who has witnessed this whole affair. “A new law, scribe,” he orders in a deep voice. “Anyone who wishes to live must serve and fear the God of the Hebrews.”