Two Words in the Middle of the Bravest Sentence in the Old Testament

The reason the small right thing does not get done is almost never courage.

It is arithmetic.

A person sits down and works out the consequences, honestly, and finds that they cannot see the end of them. If they make the phone call, there will be a conversation at some point that they cannot predict. If they say the true thing, the tone at the table changes for an unknown number of years. If they do the quiet obedient thing, there is a version where it goes fine and a version where it costs something they cannot afford.

And the sermon they have heard all their life says God will honor it.

That sentence is meant kindly and it is doing damage, because it is a promise about the outcome, and the person doing the arithmetic knows perfectly well that outcomes have gone the other way for people they can name.

Three men in Daniel 3 said something much more useful, and the useful part is two words long and almost nobody quotes it.

They decline to defend themselves

Before the famous part there is a smaller sentence that sets the whole tone.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. (Daniel 3:16, King James Version)

We are not careful to answer thee. The word means anxious. They are saying they do not need to build a case.

And notice they open with his name and no insult attached. There is no defiance in the wording. They are not being brave at him; they are simply declining to enter a negotiation, and the difference is audible.

That is worth having, because most people picture this kind of obedience as a confrontation and it exhausts them in advance. What is actually described here is somebody who has stopped preparing arguments.

You are able to stop building the case, and Scripture records men doing exactly that. Daniel 3:16 has them declining to be anxious about an answer, and it is by the Spirit, 2 Timothy 1:7, given as power and love and a sound mind rather than as fear.

The famous half is about ability

Then the half everybody knows.

If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. (Daniel 3:17)

Is able. They make a claim about His capacity and they make it confidently, and there is nothing hedged about it.

If the verse stopped there it would be a straightforward faith statement and it would also be, for most people, unusable, because a person who cannot honestly say the second clause with certainty would conclude they lack whatever these men had.

But the verse does not stop there.

You are able to say what He is able to do without pretending to know what He will do. Daniel 3:17 states the ability plainly, and it is by the Spirit, Ephesians 3:20, that He is described as able to do exceeding abundantly above what we ask or think.

And then the two words

But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. (Daniel 3:18)

But if not.

Those two words are the reason this passage is usable by an ordinary person, and they are almost always left out when it is preached.

They are saying: He is able. He may not. And the decision does not move either way.

That is a completely different structure from the sermon at the top of this article. It is not obedience purchased by a promised outcome. It is obedience that has been detached from the outcome altogether, and the detaching is what makes it survivable, because an obedience that depends on a result collapses the first time a result goes the other way.

And notice what they do not do. They do not say the fire will not hurt. They do not claim a revelation about what happens next. They simply state a decision that has been made independently of the answer.

You are able to decide something the outcome does not get a vote in. Daniel 3:18 says but if not and leaves the decision standing, and it is by His Spirit, Romans 8:14, that a person is led rather than bargained with.

Habakkuk builds the same sentence out of a whole failed year

The prophets do this shape more than once, and Habakkuk's version is agricultural and it is brutal.

Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation. (Habakkuk 3:17-18)

He lists six failures. Every source of food in that economy, gone, one after another, and he does not soften any item on the list or suggest that any of them might turn out fine.

And then yet. Which is doing the same work as but if not, and the sentence after it is about a Person rather than about a harvest.

I would point out that this is written by a man who spent the first two chapters of his book complaining to God at length and receiving an answer he did not like. This is not a temperament. It is where somebody arrived.

You are able to arrive at a yet rather than being born with one. Habakkuk 3:18 comes after two chapters of complaint and an answer he did not like, and it is by the Spirit, Galatians 5:22, that the joy in that verse is named as fruit rather than as a disposition.

Job says it first and says it hardest

The oldest version of this sentence is in Job and it is the shortest.

Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him. (Job 13:15)

Though he slay me. He does not exempt the worst case. He names it, includes it, and leaves the trust standing on the other side of it.

And the second half of the verse is the part people cut, and it is important here: but I will maintain mine own ways before him, which is Job saying he will keep speaking honestly and will not pretend. The trust and the honesty are in the same sentence.

That matters for anybody who thinks this kind of obedience requires them to stop saying what they actually think. It does not. Job is famously frank with God for another twenty-eight chapters after this verse.

You are able to trust and be completely honest in the same sentence. Job 13:15 holds both halves together, and it is the Spirit who helps our infirmities, Romans 8:26, when a person cannot get their honesty and their trust into the same prayer.

What is actually promised

It is worth saying what is promised, since the outcome is not.

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)

Work together. Not: every individual thing is good. Not: it turns out fine. Things working together is a description of a process with a direction, and the verse is careful never to say that any given item in it is pleasant.

The three men were not promised they would not go in. They went in. What the chapter records is that somebody was in there with them, which is a different promise entirely and a better one.

You are promised a presence rather than an outcome, and the presence is the better promise. Daniel 3:25 records a fourth figure in the fire, and it is the Comforter, the Holy Spirit of John 14:16, who is given to abide rather than to settle a result in advance.