The youths fall bound into the furnace: But the three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down, bound, into the furnace of blazing fire. The narrative's quiet report of their falling into the fire marks the moment where ordinary causation should produce their death. The binding prevents any possibility of escape or self-preservation; they fall helplessly into flames. Yet the text's deliberate reporting (naming each youth and describing their state) suggests that the narrator is carefully documenting what happens, preparing to report something extraordinary. The youths' helplessness and the furnace's ordinarily lethal nature create the context in which divine intervention becomes striking.

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