An Atheist Explores the Apocrypha Part 30: An Angel Like A Wet Fart (Prayer of Azariah 1)

 Prayer of Azariah  1

An Angel Like A Wet Fart.

 Welcome to the next instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Apocrypha version).

In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the Old Testament Apocrypha, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.

 For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/3aEJ6Q5

For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP

 Prayer of Azariah  1

“Then Azarias stood up, and prayed on this manner; and opening his mouth in the midst of the fire said, Blessed art thou, O Lord God of our fathers: thy name is worthy to be praised and glorified for evermore”

 The name Azariah tickled a memory in me – he was one of the three companions of Daniel who got thrown into a fiery furnace by Nabuchadnezzar for not recanting their beliefs, and get miraculously saved. Given that the first couple of verses talk of “the fire”, clearly this is that incident retold from a different perspective.

 Overall it’s much like a couple of the psalms, perhaps unsurprising since both this chapter and the psalms are works of praise. Azariah starts by accepting that God is quite right to inflict all the punishments on the Israelites because of their wrong-doings, and accepts that there is no reason for God to hear his prayer.

 However, he pretty much offers himself and his two companions up as a burnt sacrifice as he says “in a contrite heart and an humble spirit let us be accepted. Like as in the burnt offerings of rams and bullocks, and like as in ten thousands of fat lambs”. Effectively, then, he’s not actually asking to be saved, but offering himself up so that the Jewish nation can be saved. Hm. Sounds like somebody else a bit later in the Bible.

 The text then cuts back to narrative, putting in a bit of tension as servants add fuel to the furnace and flames “streamed forth above the furnace forty and nine cubits”, burning some Babylonians that got too close. But, phew, in the nick of time an angel descends and turns the inside of the furnace like a “moist whistling wind”.

 We then get another prayer, given by Azariah and chums in one voice as they call for a long list of things to praise God, each verse starting with “O all ye…” and ending with “bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever”. Amongst such things are day, night, stars, mountains, and lots  of things that carry a hot/cold motif – fire and heat, winter and summer, days and nights, frost and snow, and so on. Also the baffling “O all ye powers of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever” which seems like a kind of miscellaneous catch-all, but is kind of weird in that the powers of God would seem to me to be an inherent part of God. It reminds me of a similar psalm (but not enough that  could give you a number or anything).

 After all this, the three add a little coda saying that God “hath delivered us from hell, and saved us from the hand of death, and delivered us out of the midst of the furnace and burning flame: even out of the midst of the fire hath he delivered us”. Note that they are talking literally here – they were being burned alive in a furnace. I can see this being taken figuratively (or, rather, literally as a specific reference to Hell, not *a* hell).

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