“Therefore because the king’s commandment was urgent, and the furnace exceeding hot, the flame of the fire slew those men that took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed–nego.”
The furnace becomes so hot that the very heat kills the strong men who throw the youths inside: The furnace was so intensely hot that the raging flames killed the men who lifted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. This detail demonstrates the furnace's extreme temperature; the fire consumes those who approach it to carry out the execution. The death of the executioners creates ironic justice: those enforcing the king's command become its first victims. Yet the theological point is more subtle: the furnace's ordinary operation (consuming those who enter it) establishes the baseline against which the youths' preservation becomes miraculous. The warriors' death proves that the furnace is genuinely lethal; the youths' survival cannot be explained as natural or coincidental.
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