‘Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonished, and he rose up in haste. He spoke and said to his counsellors, “Did we not cast three men bound into the heart of the fire?” They answered and said to the king, “True, O king.” He answered and said, “Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the heart of the fire, and they have no injury, and the aspect of the fourth is like a son of the gods.” '
It is indicative of the king's fury that he had not just been satisfied with the execution being carried out. He had himself gone down to look through the side opening of the burning kiln, through which the kiln was fed and the heat of the furnace was intensified by bellows, to watch the destruction of the men who had defied him. But what he then saw astonished him, and he could not believe what he was seeing, so much so that he sought assurance from his counsellors that indeed three men, and only three men, had been cast into the fire, and also that they had been bound.
When they agreed that it was so, he told them why he was so astonished. He had seen not three men but four, and they were free from their bonds and walking about in the fire. And the fourth was like a son of the gods. They were accompanied by their God!
Whatever view we take of the fourth figure in the furnace, there seems little doubt what Nebuchadnezzar meant. The figure was ‘a son of the gods', that is, He was of the race of the gods, He was a divinity. And to Nebuchadnezzar with his knowledge of these men that could only mean one thing. It was the God of heaven. Compare Genesis 16:7; Genesis 18:1-2; Genesis 32:24-30; Judges 6:11-22; Judges 13:3; Judges 13:6; Judges 13:9; Judges 13:19-20.
And so was literally fulfilled God's promise to His redeemed people. ‘When you pass through the waters I will be with you, --- when you walk through the fire you will not be burned, nor will the flame set you alight (Isaiah 43:2).'