This fourth session listens to the Song itself. After Azariah’s repentance and the angelic cooling of the furnace, the Three Holy Children do not make the fire the center of their speech. They bless the Lord enthroned above the depths, then call heaven, earth, waters, fire, cold, animals, Israel, priests, servants, and every worshipper into one act of praise. The Coptic Church sings this as the Third Hoos because praise is not decoration after deliverance. It is formation in the furnace, training the faithful to gather creation into worship while they wait for the Lord who has already entered death and abolished it.
Overview: the Song as the Church’s school of praise
Greek Daniel 3:52-90 is the largest poetic unit in the furnace passage. It begins with direct blessing of God Himself, then turns outward to all the works of the Lord, then returns to mankind, Israel, priests, servants, righteous souls, the holy and humble of heart, and finally the three youths by name. The movement is not random. The Song starts at the throne, descends through creation, gathers humanity, and ends with thanksgiving for deliverance from hell and death.
This is why the Song belongs naturally in the Coptic Midnight Psalmody. In the Sunday Psalmody order, the Third Hoos comes after the First Hoos from Exodus 15 and the Second Hoos from Psalm 135/136 in Coptic numbering. The First Hoos sings deliverance through the sea. The Second Hoos repeats the mercy of God. The Third Hoos teaches the Church to praise from inside fire. After it, the Psali for the Three Saintly Children takes up the same refrain and makes the Paschal meaning explicit.
The point is not that many creatures are named. The point is that all creation is brought back to its proper end. Babylon used gold, music, authority, and fire against God. The Three Holy Children answer by summoning creation to bless the Lord. The human voice becomes priestly, not because man owns creation, but because man is called to offer creation back to the Creator in thanksgiving.
The Lord enthroned over the depths (Greek Daniel 3:52-56)
52 Blessed art thou, O Lord God of our fathers: and to be praised and exalted above all for ever. And blessed is thy glorious and holy name: and to be praised and exalted above all for ever.
53 Blessed art thou in the temple of thy holy glory: and to be praised and glorified above all for ever. 54 Blessed art thou that beholdest the depths, and sittest upon the cherubim: and to be praised and exalted above all for ever. 55 Blessed art thou on the glorious throne of thy kingdom: and to be praised and glorified above all for ever. 56 Blessed art thou in the firmament of heaven: and above all to be praised and glorified for ever.
The Song begins with God before it names creation. This is essential. Praise does not begin by looking at the furnace and trying to feel strong. It begins by blessing the Lord God of the fathers. The youths stand inside Babylon’s punishment, but their first horizon is the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all covenant mercy.
Verse 53 blesses God in the temple of His holy glory. This is striking because Azariah has just lamented that the people have no prince, prophet, sacrifice, incense, or place to sacrifice before God. The temple is not available to them in exile, yet God is still blessed in His holy temple. The loss of visible access does not shrink God’s glory. The worshipping heart turns toward the heavenly reality that earthly temple worship was meant to reveal.
The next verses lift the eyes higher still. God beholds the depths and sits upon the cherubim. He is on the glorious throne of His kingdom and in the firmament of heaven. The furnace is below, but God sees the depths. The youths are enclosed, but God is enthroned. Babylon imagines that the furnace can become a sealed place where the king’s will is final. The Song confesses that there is no sealed depth before the Lord.
This opening prepares the final deliverance language of verse 88, where the youths say they have been delivered from hell and saved from the hand of death. The God who beholds the depths is the God who can enter the lowest place. For Christians, this becomes bright with Paschal meaning. Christ is not only Lord above the fire. He is the Lord who descends into the depths and makes the place of death answer with praise.
Creation becomes a choir (Greek Daniel 3:57-73)
57 O all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 58 O ye heavens, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 59 O ye angels of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 60 O all ye waters that be above the heaven, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 61 O all ye powers of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever.
62 O ye sun and moon, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 63 O ye stars of heaven, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 64 O every shower and dew, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 65 O all ye winds, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 66 O ye fire and heat, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever.
71 O ye nights and days, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 72 O ye light and darkness, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. O ye frost and heat, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. O ye frost and snow, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 73 O ye lightnings and clouds, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever.
The first summons is broad: “O all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord.” Everything that follows belongs under that first phrase. Heavens, angels, waters, powers, sun, moon, stars, dew, winds, fire, heat, nights, days, light, darkness, frost, snow, lightning, and clouds are not treated as independent forces. They are works of the Lord. They have meaning because they come from Him and return to Him.
This is not simply a poetic list. It is a liturgical correction of creation. Babylon has tried to weaponize created things. Gold becomes an idol. Music becomes pressure. Fire becomes execution. Human authority becomes blasphemous demand. The Three Holy Children call creation back from misuse. Even fire and heat are commanded to bless the Lord. The fire is not praised because cruelty is good. The fire is summoned because fire belongs to God, not to Nebuchadnezzar.
That line matters for anyone praying under trial. The Song does not deny the furnace. It tells the furnace where it belongs. Created things can wound us, frighten us, or be misused against us, but they do not become ultimate. The faithful voice refuses to let the instrument of suffering become the lord of the heart.
The repeated refrain, “praise and exalt him above all for ever,” forms the soul through repetition. In worship, repetition is not empty when it returns the mind to God. The Coptic Third Hoos trains this same movement. The worshipper learns to bless God again and again until the created order is no longer seen as chaos around the self, but as a choir ordered toward the Creator.
Romans 8 helps us hear the depth of this. Saint Paul speaks of creation groaning and waiting for the revealing of the sons of God. The Song gives that hope a liturgical voice. The youths, as faithful servants of God, give words to creation’s destiny. They do not save creation by their own power. Christ does that. But they stand in the furnace as priests of praise, calling groaning creation toward the doxology that belongs to it.
Earth, living creatures, and the priestly people (Greek Daniel 3:74-85)
74 O let the earth bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 75 O ye mountains and little hills, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 76 O all ye things that grow on the earth, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever.
77 O ye seas and rivers, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 78 O ye fountains, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 79 O ye whales, and all that move in the waters, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 80 O all ye fowls of the air, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 81 O all ye beasts and cattle, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever.
82 O ye children of men, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 83 O Israel, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever.
84 O ye priests of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 85 O ye servants of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever.
The Song now moves from the upper world to earth, mountains, growth, waters, sea creatures, birds, beasts, and cattle. Then it reaches mankind: children of men, Israel, priests, and servants of the Lord. This movement teaches that man is not outside creation and not merely one item in it. Man stands within creation with a vocation to gather it into thanksgiving.
This is one of the deepest Orthodox themes in the Song. Creation is not trash to be escaped. It is not raw material for selfish use. It is God’s handiwork, wounded by sin and misuse, yet still called to praise. Human beings, especially the faithful people of God, must become the mouth of creation. The body, breath, voice, water, bread, wine, oil, incense, vestments, icons, seasons, and melodies of the Church all bear witness to this same truth: salvation restores creation to worship.
The mention of Israel, priests, and servants makes the priestly calling explicit. In the Old Covenant, the priests served at the altar. In the Church, ordained priesthood remains a concrete sacramental ministry, not a metaphor. Yet the whole people of God also bear a royal and priestly calling in Christ: to offer thanksgiving, to bless God, to sanctify ordinary life by prayer, and to refuse the false worship of idols.
The Coptic Psalmody teaches this by its order. The faithful rise with Tentheno, pass through the First Hoos of the Red Sea, stand in the mercy of the Second Hoos, and then enter the Third Hoos of the furnace. After the Third Hoos comes the Psali for the Three Saintly Children, where the Church does not merely remember Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael. She joins them.
This is why the Third Hoos is ordinary spiritual formation rather than occasional inspiration. The Church knows that trials return. She does not wait for a crisis to teach praise. She teaches praise every week, so when the soul meets fire, the refrain is already living in memory: praise Him and exalt Him above all forever.
Holy and humble of heart, delivered from hell and death (Greek Daniel 3:86-90)
86 O ye spirits and souls of the righteous, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. 87 O ye holy and humble men of heart, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever.
88 O Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, bless ye the Lord; praise and exalt him above all for ever: for he hath delivered us from hell, and saved us from the hand of death, and delivered us out of the midst of the furnace and burning flame: even out of the midst of the fire hath he delivered us. 89 O give thanks unto the Lord, because he is gracious: for his mercy endureth for ever.
90 O all ye that worship the Lord, bless the God of gods, praise him and give him thanks: for his mercy endureth for ever.
The final movement gathers the righteous, the holy, and the humble of heart. This is the crown of the Song. Creation’s praise is not complete if the human heart remains proud. The whole cosmos may be called to bless the Lord, but man must learn humility if his voice is to become true worship.
The phrase “holy and humble men of heart” is not soft. It describes the purified heart that can praise without self-display. The three youths have refused the idol, but they do not make themselves heroes. Their praise ends in thanksgiving to God because He is gracious and His mercy endures forever. The worshipper who sings the Third Hoos must therefore ask not only, “Do I praise?” but also, “Does my praise humble me?”
Verse 88 names the youths as Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, then gives the reason for praise: God has delivered them from hell, saved them from the hand of death, and delivered them from the furnace and burning flame. Brenton’s word “hell” gives the line a strong Paschal resonance in English. The furnace becomes an image of the realm of death, and deliverance becomes more than survival. It becomes a sign of the Lord who saves from the lowest place.
The ending returns to mercy. “For his mercy endureth for ever” echoes the Second Hoos, Psalm 135/136 in Coptic numbering. The Psalmody order is spiritually wise: first the sea, then mercy, then the furnace. The faithful do not enter the furnace with vague optimism. They enter with the memory that God’s mercy endures forever.
Source: Wikimedia Commons, public-domain 16th-century Levantine icon of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shadrach,_Meshach,_and_Abednego_icon.jpg
The icon holds together the same theology as the Song. The fire is visible, the youths stand in prayer, and the Lord’s saving presence is stronger than the furnace. The image is not an escape from the biblical text. It is the Church’s visual confession that praise can live where destruction was intended.
💎 Gems from the Fathers
As a thematic witness, Saint John Chrysostom uses the Three Children as an example of trials revealing virtue rather than extinguishing it. In his homily on Acts, he says their being thrown into the furnace made them more illustrious, because God turns the malice of the wicked into an occasion for virtue to shine. This does not make the furnace good. It shows that God is so sovereign that the enemy’s fire becomes the stage on which faithful praise is revealed.
The Third Hoos and the Psali: the Church practicing the Song
The Third Hoos preserves the Song as sung prayer. The familiar refrain appears again and again in English as “praise Him and exalt Him above all forever,” and in Coptic transliteration as a form of Hos erof ari-ho-oo chasf sha ni-eneh. The refrain does not merely report what the youths once sang. It gives the Church their mouth.
The Sunday Midnight Psalmody order places this praise within a larger ascent. The faithful rise from sleep, sing the victory at the Red Sea, give thanks for mercy, enter the furnace with the Three Holy Children, commemorate the saints, sing Psalms 148 to 150 in the Fourth Hoos, and then continue toward the Theotokia and the conclusion of the praise. The soul is being trained step by step: deliverance, mercy, trial, saints, heavenly praise, and the mystery of Christ.
The Psali for the Three Saintly Children makes the Christological center explicit:
O sing unto Him who was crucified, buried and resurrected for us, who trampled and abolished death, praise Him and exalt Him above all.
This line is the key to the Coptic reading. The furnace is not only a moral example of courage. It is read in the light of Christ crucified, buried, and risen. The One who delivers from hell and the hand of death is the One who trampled and abolished death. The Church can sing in the fire because Christ has gone into the fire of death and broken its power.
This also explains why the Song is repeated in the Church’s ordinary praise. Spiritual formation is not built only by emergency prayers. It is built by repeated doxology, repeated memory, repeated surrender of the imagination to God’s throne. The Christian who has sung creation’s praise many times is being taught to see frost, fire, darkness, light, hardship, and joy under the lordship of God.
Fulfillment and resonance: Romans 8 and Revelation 5 and 15
Romans 8 shows creation groaning, not because creation is evil, but because it awaits liberation in the glory of God’s children. The Song of the Three Holy Children gives that groaning creation a liturgical direction. Creation is not mute before God when the faithful become its priestly voice.
Revelation 5 shows the throne filled with blessing, and every creature in heaven, on earth, under the earth, and in the sea giving praise to the One seated on the throne and to the Lamb. The Song begins by blessing the Lord enthroned above the depths; Revelation shows the Lamb receiving the praise of every creature. The furnace hymn is therefore not a closed Old Testament poem. It resonates with the final worship of the Kingdom.
Revelation 15 speaks of those who conquer singing the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb. In the Coptic Psalmody, the First Hoos already sings Moses at the Red Sea, and the Third Hoos sings the Three Holy Children in the furnace. The Church hears these not as disconnected songs, but as one pattern of deliverance fulfilled in Christ: sea, fire, death, resurrection, and the praise of those who overcome through the Lamb.
Spiritual Fruit 🍇
The first fruit is learning to praise from the throne down, not from the furnace up. The Song begins with God enthroned over the depths. When trial becomes the first thing the heart sees, fear becomes lord. When God is blessed first, the trial remains real, but it is no longer ultimate.
The second fruit is recovering creation as gift. Fire, heat, frost, snow, sea, animals, and human beings all belong to God. The Christian should not treat creation as an idol, an enemy, or disposable material. We receive it, bless God through it, and learn to use it eucharistically, with thanksgiving.
The third fruit is accepting the priestly responsibility of the mouth. The faithful person speaks not only private feelings, but the praise that creation itself owes God. This changes ordinary prayer. A believer can bless God in the kitchen, in sickness, in work, in grief, in beauty, and in fear, because all works of the Lord are being called back into praise.
The fourth fruit is humility. The Song climaxes with the holy and humble of heart. Praise without humility can become performance. True praise bends the heart, gives thanks for mercy, and remembers that deliverance from death belongs to God alone.
Teaching Notes
The Lord enthroned over the depths (Greek Daniel 3:52-56)
- Ask: Why does the Song begin by blessing God before it calls creation to praise?
- Emphasize: The youths do not begin with the furnace. They begin with God enthroned, God in His holy temple, and God who beholds the depths.
- Watch for: Treating praise as denial of suffering. The furnace is real, but it is not ultimate.
- Connect: Verse 54 prepares verse 88. The God who beholds the depths is the Lord who delivers from hell and death.
- Show: Point to the movement from temple, to cherubim, to throne, to firmament so the class sees how praise lifts the eyes above Babylon.
Creation becomes a choir (Greek Daniel 3:57-73)
- Ask: What changes when even fire and heat are told to bless the Lord?
- Emphasize: The Three Holy Children are not praising cruelty. They are reclaiming creation from Babylon’s misuse and returning it to God.
- Watch for: Turning this section into a quick list of natural things. The deeper theme is creation ordered toward doxology.
- Connect: Romans 8 helps explain creation’s groaning and the faithful person’s priestly voice within creation.
- Show: Have the class repeat the refrain “praise Him and exalt Him above all forever” after several created things, so the repetition is experienced as formation.
Earth, living creatures, and the priestly people (Greek Daniel 3:74-85)
- Ask: Why does the Song move from earth and animals to children of men, Israel, priests, and servants?
- Emphasize: Humanity stands within creation with a priestly calling to gather creation into thanksgiving.
- Watch for: Collapsing the priestly language into a vague metaphor. Honor ordained priesthood while also teaching the worshipping vocation of the whole people in Christ.
- Connect: The Third Hoos in Midnight Psalmody forms this vocation weekly, after the Red Sea song and the mercy refrain.
- Show: Write the Psalmody order in brief: First Hoos, Second Hoos, Third Hoos, Psali for the Three Saintly Children, then show how each step prepares the next.
Holy and humble of heart, delivered from hell and death (Greek Daniel 3:86-90)
- Ask: Why does the Song climax with the holy and humble of heart rather than with human triumph?
- Emphasize: The youths give thanks because God delivered them from hell, death, and the furnace. Their praise is mercy-centered.
- Watch for: Making the youths into self-made heroes. The text names them, but it gives glory to God’s deliverance.
- Connect: The Psali line about Christ crucified, buried, and risen shows why the Coptic Church hears the furnace through Pascha.
- Show: Display the embedded public-domain icon here and ask what it teaches about real fire, humble prayer, and divine presence.
Glossary
- Benedicite: A Latin name often used for the Song of the Three Holy Children, from the repeated call to bless the Lord.
- Cherubim: Angelic beings associated with God’s throne and holy presence. In the Song, God is blessed as the One who sits upon the cherubim.
- Doxology: Praise or glorification of God. The Song is doxology under trial.
- Hell / Hades: Brenton uses “hell” in verse 88. In this study it is read as the realm of death, giving the line Paschal resonance without reducing it to later popular images.
- Hoos: A Coptic term for a canticle or hymn of praise. The Third Hoos is the Daniel 3 hymn in the Midnight Psalmody.
- Midnight Psalmody / Tasbeha: The Coptic praise service centered on biblical canticles, psalms, doxologies, psalis, and theotokia, especially sung in preparation for the Divine Liturgy.
- Psali: A Coptic hymn, often focused on the name and saving work of Christ. The Psali for the Three Saintly Children follows the Third Hoos and reads the furnace through Christ crucified, buried, and risen.
- Priestly vocation: The calling to offer creation, life, suffering, and thanksgiving back to God in worship. It does not erase ordained priesthood, but it names the worshipping responsibility of the whole people of God in Christ.
- Refrain: A repeated line in a hymn. In the Third Hoos, the repeated refrain “praise Him and exalt Him above all forever” forms the worshipper by returning every created thing to God’s glory.
- Third Hoos: The third canticle of the Coptic Midnight Psalmody, drawn from Daniel 3 and the praise of the Three Holy Children.
Source Notes
Embedded Scripture is from Brenton’s English Septuagint (LXX).
The Brenton text printed here follows the visible numbering from Daniel 3:66 to Daniel 3:71, with the hymn’s sense continuing without interruption. No separate Daniel 3:67-70 text is supplied.
Coptic Psalmody sources used: Tasbeha.org Hymn Library, “The Third Hoos,” https://tasbeha.org/hymn_library/view/108; Tasbeha.org Hymn Library, St. Antony Monastery English translation of “The Third Hoos,” https://tasbeha.org/hymn_library/view/1241; Tasbeha.org Hymn Library, “Psali for the Three Saintly Children,” https://tasbeha.org/hymn_library/view/1242; HCOC / Coptic Heritage, “The Spirituality of the Holy Psalmody,” https://copticheritage.org/the-spirituality-of-the-holy-psalmody/; Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Los Angeles, “The Life of Praise and Psalmody,” https://www.lacopts.org/story/the-life-of-praise-and-psalmody/.
Patristic witness used here is thematic rather than line-by-line commentary on the Song: Saint John Chrysostom, Homilies on Acts, Homily 54, NPNF1 volume 11, on the Three Children as an example of trials making virtue shine, https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf111.vi.liv.html#vi.liv-p10.
New Testament resonance is by reference to Romans 8, Revelation 5, and Revelation 15, especially creation’s groaning, every creature’s praise before the throne and the Lamb, and the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb.
Image source: Wikimedia Commons, public-domain 16th-century Levantine icon of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shadrach,_Meshach,_and_Abednego_icon.jpg.