Hananiah

Hananiah was a young Judean man, better known by his Babylonian name Shadrach, who was taken with Daniel and his companions to Babylon in Nebuchadnezzar's first deportation (605 BCE) and selected for training in the royal court. Along with Mishael (Meshach) and Azariah (Abednego), he refused to eat the king's defiling food (Daniel 1) and later refused to bow before Nebuchadnezzar's golden image on the plain of Dura. Condemned to death in a furnace heated seven times hotter than normal, the three men were unharmed, and a fourth 'like a son of the gods' was seen walking with them (Daniel 3:24–25). Their deliverance prompted Nebuchadnezzar to issue a decree protecting worshipers of the God of Israel, and the story has served throughout history as a model of courageous faithfulness under oppressive state power.