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Essay on The Hebrews in the Fiery Furnace
In The Hebrews in the Fiery Furnace, the king orders the punishment of the Three Hebrews (Dan. 3:19-20). They are cast into the fiery furnace for refusing to worship, and are joined by a fourth figure, as the text specifies: "Behold I see four men loose, and walking in the midst of the fire, and there is no hurt in them, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God" (Dan. 3:92). To the right are the unlucky soldiers-- "the strongest men that were in his army"--who took the Three Hebrews to the furnace, but could not withstand its heat (Dan. 3:20-22).
The image again recalls the Roda Bible in some respects: in the middle register of folio 65, Christ joins the Three Hebrews, though only the heads of the four are shown inside a small furnace; further, the flames, which billow to both left and right, also engulf the king's army.
Finally, Nebuchadnezzar appears again with the Three Hebrews. The king is seated to the left, and raises his left hand as if in wonder. Giovenale described this scene as Nebuchadnezzar ordering the Three Hebrews to worship,(Giovenale 56) but both the sequence of the frescoes and Nebuchadnezzar's gesture--clearly not a gesture of command--argue against it. The scene most probably depicts the moments after the king commands the Hebrews to leave the furnace; his raised hand suggests his amazement that they have survived:
And immediately Sidrach, Misach and Abednago went out from the midst of the fire. And the nobles, and the magistrates, and the judges, and the great men of the king being gathered together, considered these men, that the fire had no power on their bodies, and that not a hair of their head had been singed, nor their garments altered, nor the smell of fire had passed on them.......
