Saturday, January 17, 2015

The Song of the Three Holy Children: No dragons

Apparently this was a part of the book of Daniel, but got left out because it wasn't in Hebrew, which is too bad, because it opens with children walking through fire. This causes someone called Azarius, who is also in the middle of this fire, to stand up and start praying for forgiveness. That goes on for 20-odd verses we've heard before.

Then we get a bit more story:

A wicked king put 'them' (I assume the 3 kids, but who knows?) into an oven. Then he stoked the fire so high, it streamed forth above the furnace forty and nine cubits (v. 24). On its way up, it kills some Chaldeans. Alas, we do not hear the story of how Chaldeans came to be in the air above a furnace.

Anyway, an angel and Azarius arrive on the scene and cool down the centre of the fire. And do the three children use this space to make dragons? No, they do not. They immediately drop to their knees to say a prayer of thanks. And that's all we can say about this book, really.

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