Sha'drach (Heb. Shadrah', T\^y:: ; Sept. "EtSpciK V. r. ^iSpax; Vulg. Sidrach), the Chaldee name of Hananiah, the chief of the " three children" who were Daniel's companions (Dan. i, 7, etc.). His song, as given in the Apocryphal Daniel, forms part of the service qf the Church of England, under the name of '-Benedicite omnia opera." A long prayer in the furnace is also ascribed to him in the Sept. and Vulgate; but this is thought to be by a different hand from that which add- ed the song. The history of Shadrach, or Hananiah, is briefly this. He was taken captive with Daniel, Mish- ael, and Azariah at the first invasion of Judah by Nebu- chadnezzar, in the fourth, or, as Daniel (i, 1) reckons, in the third, year of Jehoiakim, at the time when the Jew- ish king himself was bound in fetters to be carried off to Babylon. B.C. 606. Being, with his three compan- ions, apparently of royal birth (ver. 3), of superior un- derstanding, and of goodly person, he was selected, with them, for the king's immediate service; and was for this end instructed in the language and in all the learn- ing and wisdom of the ChakUeans as taught in the col- lege of the magicians. Like Daniel, he avoided the pollution of the meat and wine which formed their daily provision at the king's cost, and obtained permission to live on pulse and water. When the time of bis proba- tion was over, he and his three companions, being found superior to all the other magicians, were advanced to stand before the king. When the decree for the slaugh- ter of all the magicians went forth from Nebuchadnez- zar, we (ind Shadrach uniting with his companions in prayer to God to reveal the dream to Daniel; and when, in answer to that prayer, Daniel had successfully inter- preted the dream and been made ruler of the province of Bal)vlon and head of the college of magicians, Sha- drach was promoted to a high civil office. But the pen- alty of Oriental greatness, especially when combined with honesty and uprightness, soon had to be paid by him, on the accusation of certain envious Chalda\ans. For refusing to worship the golden image he was cast with IMeshacii and Abed-ncgo into the burning furnace. But Ids faith stood firm; and his victory was complete when he came out of the furnace with his two companions un- hurt, heard the king's testimony to the glory of God, and was "promoted in the province of Babylon." We hear no more of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-ncgo in the Old Test, after this; neither are they spoken of in the New Test, except in the pointed allusion to thein in the Epistle to the Hebrews, as having " through faith quenched the violence of fire" (Heb. xi, 33, 34). But
there are repeated allusions to them in the later Apocry- phal books, and the martyrs of the Maccabaan period seem to have been much encouraged by their example. See 1 JIacc. ii, 59, 60 ; 3 Mace, vi, 6 ; 4 Mace, xiii, 9 ; xvi, 3, 21; xviii, 12. Ewald (Geschichte, iv, 557) observes, indeed, that next to the Pentateuch no book is so often referred to in these times, in proportion, as the book of Daniel. The apocryphal additions to Daniel contain, as usual, many supplementary particulars about the fur- nace, the angel, and Nebuchadnezzar, besides the intro- duction of the prayer of Shadrach and the hymn. The- odore Parker observes with truth, in opposition to Ber- tlioldt, that these additions of the Alexandrine prove that the Hebrew was the original text, because thej' are obviously inserted to introduce a better connection into the narrative (Josephus, /l?;^ x, 10; Prideaux, Connect. i, 59, (iO: Parker's De Wet te's/«/ro(/.ii, 483-510; Grimm, on 1 Mace, ii, 60; Hitzig [who takes a thoroughly scep- tical view], on Dan. Hi; Eivald, iv, 106, 107, 557-559; Keil, Kiideit. Daniel). — Smith. See Daxikl.
As to the etymology, " this name is identified by some with Iladrach, ~"iln (Zech. ix, 1), the name of a Syri- an god who represents the seasons (""rn = ~iTn, ' to turn,' 'wind'). The interchange of H with sibilants is not without parallel. Others profess to trace the name to a Babylonian source, and connect it with the Assyrian Sadhiru or Sadhru, 'the great scribe' (^li'i!?), with the non - Assj'rian guttural termination, or with sed (comp. Sept, 26^-), the Assyrian equivalents of mas (comp.Meshech, and the analogy suggested b}- i~PJ3n), followed by the insertion of the r (frequent in Assyrian) before the guttural" {Sj)eal-e7-'s Commentarif). Accord- ing to Bohlen, the name is Persian, and signifies 7-ejoic- inf] in the icaij ; according to Benfey, it is Zend, meaning rotjal.
Shady-trees, in Job xl, 21, 22, is the rendering of the Hebrew tse'eUm, D"'?NiJ (Sept. and Vulg. render at random), which perhaps means properly the jiriclli/ lotus-bushes. See Tkee,
Shaffer, Hiraji M., a minister of the IVIethodist Episcopal Church, was born in Carroll County, O., in 1804, and graduated as a physician when but eighteen years of age. He afterwards studied law, and was ad- mitted to the bar at Sidney. He joined the Church in 183!, was licensed to preach in 1832, and entered the Ohio Conference the same year. In this and the Cen- tral Ohio Conference he passed his ministerial life. He was several times elected delegate to the General Con- ference. He died near Eichwood, O., Dec. 29, 1871, He published a work on Infant Baptism ( N. Y. 185G, r2mo). See Minutes of A nnital Conferences, 1872, p. 92.