The Greek additions to Daniel 3: the prayer of Azariah and the song of the three young men

In the Aramaic text of Daniel, the narrative passes directly from Daniel 3.23 to Daniel 3.24.

The three men fall bound into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. The narrative continues immediately with the reaction of Nebuchadnezzar, who leaps to his feet and asks his counselors whether it was not three men that were cast into the fire.

The ancient Greek versions contain a long additional section between these two moments.

This addition considerably slows down the narrative and gives access to what happens in the furnace before Nebuchadnezzar sees the four figures.

The whole can be divided into three main parts.

The first is the prayer of Azariah.

The second describes more explicitly the divine protection in the furnace.

The third is the song of the three young men, sometimes called the “Song of the Three Holy Children”.

These elements develop the narrative theologically without altering its fundamental outcome: the three Judeans are condemned, God intervenes and they come out unharmed.

The name Azariah may give the impression that an additional character appears in the furnace.

It is in fact the Hebrew name of Abednego.

Daniel 1.6 presents the four young Judeans under their original names:

Daniel;

Hananiah;

Mishael;

Azariah.

The chief of the eunuchs then gives them Babylonian names:

Daniel becomes Belteshazzar;

Hananiah becomes Shadrach;

Mishael becomes Meshach;

Azariah becomes Abednego (Daniel 1.7).

The “prayer of Azariah” is therefore the prayer of the figure whom Daniel 3 generally calls Abednego.

The use of his Judean name is theologically significant: in the midst of the furnace, the Greek text restores the young man to his identity as an Israelite before God.

The first part of the addition presents Azariah standing in the midst of the fire and praying to God.

His prayer does not immediately ask for the destruction of Nebuchadnezzar.

It begins by acknowledging the justice of God.

Azariah confesses the sins of the people and interprets the misfortunes of Israel in the light of its unfaithfulness to the covenant.

This perspective places the ordeal of the three men within the larger history of the exile.

Babylon is no longer only the place of their individual persecution. It is also the place where Israel suffers the historical consequences of its unfaithfulness.

The prayer thus develops a theme that belongs deeply to the biblical theology of exile.

The destruction of Jerusalem and foreign domination are not presented as proof of the powerlessness of the God of Israel.

They are understood as a judgment permitted by God.

This interpretation echoes in particular the warnings of Deuteronomy 28 as well as the theology developed in the books of Kings and Jeremiah.

The prayer thus turns the furnace into a place of national confession.

Azariah suffers personally, but he prays as a member of the covenant people.

One of the most important themes of the prayer concerns the disappearance of Israel’s cultic institutions.

The people find themselves deprived of several elements associated with Temple worship.

This situation raises a fundamental question: how can one serve God when the sanctuary, the altar and the sacrifices are no longer accessible?

The prayer’s answer is to offer God an inner attitude of repentance and faithfulness.

This theology would take on particular importance for Jewish communities living far from Jerusalem or after the destruction of the Temple.

The prayer does not deny distress.

It acknowledges the humiliation of the people while maintaining trust in God’s promises.

The reasoning is therefore different from that which would claim deliverance on the ground that the three men are personally blameless.

Azariah appeals rather to God’s faithfulness to his covenant and to the glory of his name.

This perspective remarkably complements Daniel 3.17-18: human faithfulness remains firm, but it does not place God under any obligation to perform the requested miracle.

The Greek section then provides a much more detailed description of what the Aramaic text only lets us infer.

The angel of the Lord — show definition INF353 comes down into the furnace with Azariah and his companions.

The flame is driven back and the inside of the furnace becomes for them a place where the fire cannot reach them.

This description corresponds directly to the interpretation later given by Nebuchadnezzar in the Aramaic text:

“He sent his angel and delivered his servants” (Daniel 3.28).

The Greek addition therefore does not create the idea of an angelic intervention absent from Daniel 3. It explicitly develops an interpretation already present in the Aramaic narrative.

This clarification has a consequence for the study of the fourth figure of Daniel 3.25.

The ancient Greek tradition clearly understands the supernatural intervention as that of an angel sent by God.

This reading corresponds to Daniel 3.28.

It is therefore an ancient witness in favor of the angelic interpretation.

It does not make a christophanic reading impossible within the Christian tradition, but it confirms that the primary identification of the figure as a heavenly messenger has solid textual roots.

After this intervention a long song of praise begins.

The movement is remarkable.

The prayer of Azariah was mainly confession and supplication.

The song becomes celebration.

The three men progressively invite the whole of creation to bless the Lord.

The deliverance experienced in the furnace thus takes on a cosmic dimension.

The God who protects them is not only the God of a small group of Judean exiles. He is the Lord of all creation.

The song successively summons many elements of creation.

Heavenly realities, atmospheric phenomena, light, waters, earth, mountains, vegetation, animals and human beings are called to bless God.

This structure recalls several biblical psalms, particularly Psalm 148, where the heavens, the stars, the natural elements, the animals and the peoples are invited to praise the the Eternal — show definition INF038.

The song thus belongs to a liturgical tradition deeply rooted in biblical language.

The context gives certain invocations a particular force.

The three young men are precisely in a furnace.

Yet the song can include fire and heat themselves in the universal call to praise.

The instrument meant to destroy them thus also belongs to a creation subject to God.

The theology corresponds perfectly to the message of Daniel 3: fire is not an autonomous power able to contest divine sovereignty.

It burns the soldiers when it exercises its normal action, but it becomes powerless against those whom God protects.

The contrast with the statue of Nebuchadnezzar then becomes particularly strong.

At the beginning of the chapter, the king gathers the representatives of his Empire and commands them to worship an image made by man.

In the Greek song, it is no longer the Empire that is summoned, but the whole of creation.

And this creation is not invited to worship the king’s statue.

It is called to bless the Creator.

The universal claim of the Babylonian sovereign thus receives a theological answer: true universality belongs to God.

The addition is not present in the Masoretic Aramaic text of Daniel.

It therefore does not appear in the traditional Hebrew-Aramaic text transmitted by rabbinic Judaism.

This absence is fundamental for the textual history.

It would not be accurate simply to insert the prayer and the song into the Aramaic text as if their presence there were materially attested.

They belong to an expanded Greek form of the book of Daniel.

The history of the Greek text of Daniel has an important peculiarity.

An ancient Greek translation, generally referred to as the Septuagint version or “Old Greek”, circulated in antiquity.

Another Greek form, traditionally associated with Theodotion, subsequently became widely established in Christian use.

The version known as Theodotion’s became so dominant that, in Christian manuscripts, it largely replaced the ancient Greek translation of Daniel.

The additions to Daniel, including the prayer of Azariah and the song of the three young men, are known in this Greek tradition.

The fact that this section is absent from the Masoretic text does not mean that it is medieval or was invented late by Christianity.

It belongs to the early history of the Greek transmission of Daniel and existed before the great later Christian confessional controversies.

The question of its exact origin nevertheless remains distinct from that of its antiquity.

It may have been composed in a Jewish milieu and incorporated into an expanded form of the narrative before its use by Christians.

The manuscripts of Daniel discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls are particularly important for the history of the book.

They attest the existence of Daniel before the Christian era and show the circulation of the Hebrew and Aramaic text in ancient Judaism.

However, the surviving fragments do not allow us to reconstruct materially every verse of the book.

The absence of a passage on a fragment that does not preserve the relevant part is obviously no proof of its absence from the complete copy.

We must therefore avoid using Qumran — show definition INF064 to claim to demonstrate more than what the fragments actually allow us to establish.

In the Jewish canon, Daniel belongs to the Ketuvim, the Writings.

The prayer of Azariah and the song of the three young men are not part of the canonical Hebrew-Aramaic text transmitted in rabbinic Judaism.

The traditional Jewish reading of Daniel 3 therefore rests on the narrative corresponding to the thirty verses of the Aramaic text.

This situation partly explains the differences in numbering encountered when comparing biblical editions belonging to different traditions.

The Catholic and Orthodox Churches received the Greek additions to Daniel into their biblical tradition.

The prayer of Azariah and the song of the three young men therefore have scriptural status there.

In Catholic editions, they are generally integrated into chapter 3 of Daniel.

The numbering then becomes longer than that of Bibles based solely on the Aramaic text for this chapter.

The Orthodox traditions also give an important place to these texts, notably in their liturgical use.

The Protestant Reformation — show definition INF016 favored for the Old Testament the canon corresponding to the Hebrew-Aramaic corpus of Judaism.

The Greek additions to Daniel were therefore generally not retained in the canonical body of the Protestant Old Testament.

They may nevertheless appear in editions that include the “Apocrypha — show definition INF029” or the deuterocanonical — show definition INF012 writings.

In this setting, they can be studied as important witnesses to ancient Judaism and to the history of biblical interpretation without receiving the same canonical status.

The terminology must be used with precision.

In the Catholic tradition, these passages are generally described as deuterocanonical — show definition INF012.

In many Protestant traditions, they are classed among the Apocrypha — show definition INF029.

These two terms reflect different conceptions of the canon.

It is therefore preferable, in an academic study, to specify the tradition concerned rather than to use either of these terms as if it were a universally accepted classification.

They develop the narrative, but do not overturn its message.

The Aramaic text already affirms:

the faithfulness of the three Judeans;

their condemnation to the fire;

the intervention of a heavenly being;

their deliverance;

Nebuchadnezzar’s recognition of this deliverance.

The Greek version adds mainly a liturgical and theological interpretation of what takes place inside the furnace.

It gives the three men a voice during the period when the Aramaic text remains silent.

This difference is particularly interesting.

In the Aramaic text, the reader discovers the miracle essentially through the eyes of Nebuchadnezzar.

The king looks into the furnace.

He sees that there are four figures.

He calls the three men to come out.

The dignitaries then examine their bodies and their clothing.

In the Greek addition, the reader symbolically enters the furnace with the condemned men.

He hears their prayer.

He sees the intervention of the angel.

He takes part in their praise.

The two forms therefore produce different narrative effects.

Even when a study follows the Aramaic form of Daniel 3 as its main text, the Greek addition deserves to be known.

It is an ancient witness to the way the narrative was received and developed in Greek-speaking Judaism.

It shows in particular the importance given:

to repentance;

to the exile;

to the covenant;

to prayer;

to angelic intervention;

to the universal praise of the Creator.

It thus contributes to the history of the reception of Daniel 3 without having to be confused with its Aramaic form.