ABEDNEGO å bəd’ nə gō (עֲבֵ֣ד נְגֹ֑ו, meaning uncertain). The spelling is עֲבֵ֣ד נְגֹ֔וא in Daniel 3:29. (See [http://biblegateway/wiki/Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego SHADRACH].) The Babylonian name given by Nebuchadnezzar’s chief of eunuchs to Azariah, one of the three companions of Daniel (Dan 1:7). Robert Dick Wilson (in ISBE) suggested that the name is a tr. of Arad-Ishtar, meaning “servant of Ishtar,” while Edward J. Young allows the possibility that “servant of Nebo” might be meant. Azariah, with his companions, refused the king’s food. After ten days’ trial, the four young men were “better in appearance” than those “who ate the king’s rich food” (Dan 1:15), so they were allowed to continue their Heb. diet.

These three young men, appointed over certain affairs of the province of Babylon at the suggestion of Daniel, were later thrown into the fiery furnace for their failure to obey the king’s commandment to worship his image. Joined in the fiery furnace by one who appeared as a “son of God,” they were protected and saved from the fire of the furnace by divine intervention (Dan 1:7; 3:12-30).

Bibliography E. J. Young, The Prophecy of Daniel (1949), 39-44, 83-96.