Hananiah (I)

I. HANANIAH, one of the three young men of the Tribe of Judah and Royal Family, who, having been carried away captives to Babylon, were chosen among others to be instructed in all the Sciences of the Chaldæans, and wait in Nebuchadnezzar’s palace. The name of Hananiah was changed into that of Shadrach, and he was brought up with Dan. i. 7. Dan. iii. 1, 2, &c.Daniel in the Prince’s Court. Nebuchadnezzar having set up a Statue in the Plain of Dura, near Babylon, and commanded all his servants upon pain of death to worship it; Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did not believe themselves obliged to submit to such unjust orders. They were cast therefore into the fiery furnace: but God did not permit the flames to hurt them; they came out as intire and well, as when they were thrown in. The Angel of the Lord descended to them in the furnace, and suspended the activity of the flame, so far at least as it might have affected them. This happened about the year of the World 3443, before Jesus Christ 557, before the Vulgar Æra 561. And after Nebuchadnezzar’s metamorphosis, when he was again settled in his throne, he himself related this strange transformation, and the dream which preceded it, in the Edict published by him upon the occasion of the miracle that had happened in favour of the three Hebrews. Hananiah and Daniel had been then about Dan. iii. ad finem, & iv. 1, 3, & 32, 33.seven seven and twenty years in captivity at Babylon.

Read this article in its place on the printed pages