fire: a burning blaze of flame
In the Aramaic chapters of the Old Testament this word simply names fire, the everyday blaze of burning flame. It belongs entirely to the book of Daniel, and its uses fall into two vivid scenes.
Most of the time it names the furnace. In Daniel 3 it appears over and over in the phrase "the burning fiery furnace," the oven Nebuchadnezzar heats seven times hotter to kill Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Here fire is an instrument of execution so fierce it kills the soldiers who throw the three men in, yet leaves the men themselves untouched.
In Daniel 7 the same plain word turns upward to describe God. In Daniel's night vision the throne of the Ancient of Days is flames of fire, its wheels are burning fire, and a river of fire streams out from before him. The identical word that named a death sentence now paints the blazing glory and judgment of God.
So one ordinary word for fire holds together the book's two great fires: the furnace that could not consume the faithful, and the fire of God's own presence. It matches, sense for sense, the common Hebrew word for fire (אֵשׁ) used everywhere else in the Old Testament.