Appeal to God on Behalf of His Glory and Love
Why do we use their Babylonian names?
While writing an assignment for seminary, I stumbled upon an interesting thought that I hadn’t picked up on before, and I wanted to write it out here to share as simply that: an interesting thought. It will, obviously, come paired with some good theology, but don’t let this be authoritative in any way.
That said, I want to lead off with this question: why did Daniel—and by extension, why do we—call Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego when we don’t call Daniel Beltashazzar? For this question, and this question alone, I am going to call them by their Hebrew names because I want to and don’t see a good reason not to other than Daniel no longer uses their Hebrew names after they are renamed in Babylon.
The Righteous Response to Coming Death
Long story short, the focus of this post will be on Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael’s response to Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 3:17-18, which reads, “If the God we serve exists, then he can rescue us from the furnace of blazing fire, and he can rescue us from the power of you, the king. But even if he does not rescue us, we want you as king to know that we will not serve your gods or worship the gold statue you set up.”
In times past, I—and others I’ve known—have balked at this statement because it seems to lack a professing faith in God’s salvation, but it actually permits a viewpoint that rests more assuredly in God’s glory whether He answers prayer with salvation in this life or in bringing us to Himself in death. But that’s not what I want to focus on here because I think it’s rather interesting what Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah do in relation to how Moses so often appealed to God to not destroy Israel.
How to Appeal to God for Something
A negative and two positive examples will serve here. The negative is first and comes from Abraham’s appeal to God in Genesis 18:16-33 with relation to Sodom and Gomorrah. In order to keep it short, I’ll only quote verse 24 here: “’What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away instead of sparing the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people who are in it?’” Note that Abraham is requesting God to act on the basis of the righteousness of man. The inevitable result is failure because God indeed destroys the cities, and, in doing so, reveals His glory as a God who will not abide evil.
The first positive is in Exodus 33:15-16: “’If your presence does not go,’ Moses responded to him, ‘don’t make us go up from here. How will it be known that I and your people have found favor with you unless you go with us? I and your people will be distinguished by this from all the other people on the face of the earth.’” Moses’s appeal here is a personal request for God to go with him and Israel after the golden calf incident. Notably, Moses makes a different subtle appeal to God than Abraham’s forthright one; he asks for God to glorify Himself by showing His favor upon the people of Israel.
An interesting aside here: in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the OT) this is the same word for favor ascribed to Mary in Luke 1:30 when it says, “Then the angel told her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.’” Is it not now more intriguing that Jesus is called Immanuel—God with us—in the prophets? For it is by God being with us that we have found favor with Him, as evidenced in the speech from Moses, even to the point of His sacrifice and resurrection so His Spirit can indwell us and be with us always, even to the end of the age.
Curiosity aside behind us, and to focus back on my point, the difference between Abraham’s and Moses’s appeals are stark and reflect a monumental difference in how God acts. Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed because there are no righteous men among the cities. Meanwhile, God does go up from Mount Sinai with Israel to the promised land despite failure after failure and disobedience after disobedience all because God seeks to maintain that He is “a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth, maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin” without leaving the guilty unpunished (Exodus 34:6-7). Whenever possible, God seeks to show His justice by sparing the guilty on account of the guiltless Christ, even if that Christ had not yet come in full. So Moses’s appeal to His character of faithful love, compassion, and grace works much more mightily than Abraham’s does to righteous men who don’t exist.
The second example of Moses’s request comes in Numbers 14:13-19 as his response to God’s declaration to strike Israel with a plague to destroy them. For the sake of brevity, I’ll only quote verses 15-16, “’If you kill this people with a single blow, the nations that have heard of your fame will declare, “Since the Lord wasn’t able to bring this people into the land he swore to give them, he has slaughtered them in the wilderness.”’” Moses’s appeal now is not just to God’s desire for mercy in justice, for faithful love, compassion, and grace but for God’s own glory. The argument He makes can essentially be brought down to this: If You kill the Israelites, the other nations will claim You are a weak God, unable to do what You say; therefore, do what You promised, and pardon the people of Israel so that they will not say these things.
Sometimes a Bold Move Pays off
It’s a bold move but one that works. God spares the people because His glory is what He promised to come about with Abraham way back in Genesis 22:18 when He said, “’And all the nations of the earth will be blessed by your offspring because you have obeyed my command.’” God’s glory is in the rescuing and blessing of all nations of the earth by Christ, who would come about through Judah and David to be the sacrifice for all sins. It is with this end in mind that God makes the decision to spare Israel again and again and again and to leave a remnant for Himself time after time after time. It is because God is not like humans that He should lie (Numbers 23:19, Hebrews 6:18) that He gives mercy where justice ought to be served.
Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah employ both of Moses’s requests at once in their own speech to Nebuchadnezzar; they lean directly on the promise of God’s covenant with Abraham, Moses, and David that God is faithful, compassionate, merciful, gracious, and seeking to bless. They lean on the truth that He is with them, and, in doing so, appeal for God to remind the world He has given Israel His favor. At the same time, they appeal to God’s glory, essentially saying to Nebuchadnezzar that they will glorify God in life and in death, and it is up to God to decide which of His actions achieves His greatest glory. And as has occurred many times before, it was better in this case that God preserve their lives to prove to Nebuchadnezzar which God is real and which is not and to remind His people that He is with them and they have His favor even in captivity in Babylon.
How Is This Applicable to us?
I say all this to say that it’s a neat story but perhaps not one whose tenets we, as modern day believers, should employ to the same intensity. It is not right to put God to the test, and it is difficult to walk that fine line as Moses, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah did. But it does give us some basis for actions in how we approach God. If you have ever found yourself, even subtly and silently, pleading to God to heal someone because of “insert thing they did” or to provide something for you because of “insert thing you’ve done,” then you’ve fallen prey to the same fallacy Abraham did: presuming God answers prayers because of human righteousness.
If you are to appeal to any character in order to beseech God to answer your prayers, always ensure to appeal to His character. If you seek healing, ask for healing from the God of mercy whose glory might be revealed in the healing even as the blind man in John 9:1-7. If you seek something you’ve hoped for, seek on account of the Father who gives good things to His children (Matthew 7:11). Appealing on your righteousness only nets destruction of pride; appealing on God’s mercy and glory is a much steadier foundation to reach out on.