(c) 2023 by Bob Siegel
Recently I received a very interesting question from somebody comparing Bible translations. It had to do with the passage in Daniel where his three friends, refusing to bow down to a statue and call the king “God” were to be executed in a fiery furnace. They survived miraculously and their captors saw one who “looked like a son of the gods.”
Here is the question with various translations quoted.
The quotation is from Daniel 3:25.
He said, “Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods” (NIV).
He said, “Look! I see four men loosed and walking about in the midst of the fire [a]without harm, and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods!” (NASB)
“Look!” he answered, “I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire; and they are not hurt, and the form of the fourth is like the[a] Son of God (NKJV).
The submitted question says, “I would have assumed King James Version was wrong but looking at interlinear it appears to be the only one that got it right. Interlinear translates the word “God” singular.”
ANSWER:
They’re actually both right. The Hebrew word for God is Elohim. It’s a plural word and literally translates as “gods” but a study OT context shows an understanding of the God of Israel being a single deity. This is apparently a hint of the Trinity in OT times. Ancient Jews would not have recognized that, but they did understand Yahweh their God as a single being.
Here is an example of the context I was referring to and its actually a very familiar verse:
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the LORD is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4)
Whenever we see the word LORD in capital letters in our English translations, we are reading a deliberate substitution for God’s name.
God’s name, according to His interaction with Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3) is literally “I AM.” We do not know how the name was pronounced, but a good and common guess is Yahweh. I say “guess” because ancient Hebrew script was written only with consonants. There were no vowel notations. Hebrews memorized the vowel sounds orally.
In Jewish synagogue services, the name for God was considered too holy to pronounce. So, in public Scripture readings, when they got to Yahweh, they substituted the Hebrew word for Lord, Adonai. Years later, at the completion of the Ben Asher O.T. text (about 1010 A.D.) vowel notations were finally included in the manuscript copies but they put them around every word except Yahweh, which is why we still guess the pronunciation. English translations have continued this tradition. So when you see the word lord in small letters, the Hebrew word really was Adonoi. If you see it in caps (LORD,) the word is Yahweh with a substitution.
Now, returning to the question at hand, the word for God once again was Elohim and while that was a plural word, in the passage above we see it used in connection with a single name and also with the description “one.”
Hear, O Israel: The Lord (YAHWEH) our God (Elohim) The LORD (Yahweh) is one.
So, most translations are being literal. KJ V is capturing Jewish understanding and interlinear is correctly showing Elohim as a single word albeit a single word which translates as gods. When talking about ancient idols, the plural of the word really did mean multiple deities but not when talking about Yahweh.
In Daniel, this undoubtedly was a pre-incarnation of Jesus down in the fire with the three men but the Babylonians would not have understood as much or used that title. In their belief system, there were multiple gods.
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