Song of the Three Children.—This section is composed of the Prayer of Azariah and the Song of Azariah, Ananias and Misael, and was inserted after iii. 23 of the canonical text of Daniel. According to Fritzsche, König, Schürer, &c., it was composed in Greek and added to the Greek translation. On the other hand, Delitzsch, Bissell, Ball, &c., maintain a Hebrew original. The latter view has been recently supported by Rothstein, Apocr. und Pseud. i. 173-176, who holds that these additions were made to the text before its translation into Greek. These additions still preserve, according to Rothstein, a fragment of the original text, i.e. verses 23-28, which came between verses 23 and 24 of chapter iii. of the canonical text. They certainly fill up excellently a manifest gap in this text. “The Song of the Three Children” was first added after the verses just referred to, and subsequently the Prayer of Azariah was inserted before these verses.
Literature.—Ball in the Speaker’s Apocr. ii. 305 sqq.; Rothstein in Kautzsch’s Apocr. und Pseud. i. 173 sqq.; Schürer,³ Gesch. iii. 332 sqq.
(R. H. C.)
[1] Four personages of the name of Daniel appear in the Old Testament: (1) the patriarch of Ezekiel (see above); (2) a son of David (1 Chron. iii. 1); (3) a Levite contemporary with Ezra (Ezra viii. 2; Neh. x. 6); (4) our Daniel.
[2] Ant. x. 10, 1.
[3] Chap, x., on the Prophets.
[4] Panarion, adv. Haeres. 55, 3.
[5] Prince, Dan. p. 26, n. 6.
[6] Dan. p. viii.