Nethar (נְתַר) is an Aramaic verb meaning to loosen, free, shake off, or untie. It appears in Daniel where it describes loosening the bonds of men in the fiery furnace. The term reflects the Aramaic sections of Daniel and corresponds to Hebrew nathar (H5425).
Daniel 3 contains one of Scripture's most dramatic deliverance accounts: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego emerge from the furnace with bonds nethar — loosened — but otherwise unharmed. The king sees four figures, not three. This "fourth man" in the fire is theologically loaded: a Christophany, the pre-incarnate Son accompanying the faithful into the very flames of persecution. The theology of nethar is that suffering does not destroy the faithful — it burns away only the ropes that bound them.
The fiery furnace narrative is a masterwork of irony: those who bound the three are killed by the fire, but the bound ones are nethar — freed — by the same fire. Their only loss was their ropes. Augustine's observation: "Our heart is restless until it rests in Thee" — and the furnace of trial is often what burns away what restlessly binds us to lesser things. The unbound life is not the life without trial but the life in which trial has done its work.