The objection that Ananias, Azarias, and Misael are invoked as saints (which probably caused the omission in 1789 of v. 66 (88) from the American P.B.) is sufficiently answered by pointing out that the Song is praise, not prayer; and that these three do not stand on a different footing in this respect from the other objects apostrophized. Moreover, a highly poetical composition of this kind is not to be too literally interpreted. As Liddon remarks in his Elements of Religion (Lond. 1892, p. 182), "The apostrophes of the Psalms and Benedicite are really acts of praise to God, of which his creatures furnish the occasion;" and Addison again (Spect. No. 327), "Invocations of this nature fill the mind with glorious ideas of God's works." v. 43 (65) is oddly applied by Archdeacon Frank, Serm. XLII. to Pentecost (Oxf. 1849, II. 254).
Belief is plainly shewn in an angelic ministry, sent down to help God's suffering servants, and endued with miraculous powers. The angel comes, too, after their humble confession and prayer for rescue (vv. 43-45), and before their song of praise. The very propriety however of this arrangement, from a theological point of view, induces Rothstein to deem the prayer a subsequent introduction, in order to supply the want of request for deliverance before praise for its accomplishment; and he thinks that the opening in the narrative for the insertion of the prayer (between vv. 23 and 46) was not, in the Ο´, very deftly effected (Kautzsch, I. 175, 181).
The natural and the supernatural, without any incongruity, are blended as being all under one control, all subserving the same great ends, as in the Hebrew Bible. But there is no increase of the miraculous element beyond that in chapter iii., in which this piece is inserted; and at a later age increase would have been highly probable. What essential difference is there to be found between the miracles of the Chaldee and of the Greek Daniel? Surely none.
A typical resemblance was discerned by St. Antony of Padua (Moral Concordances, ed. Neale, p. 123), between v. 26 (44) and the Annunciation, but this will be regarded by many minds as a very fanciful theological discovery, and one surely not in the purview of the composer of the passage.
Chronology.
There is but little in the way of chronological indication in this addition; considerably less than in the other two, and what there is, is indirectly brought in.
A time after the Captivity is evidently pointed to in vv. 26, 32, 37, 38. Jerusalem was lying under a heavy visitation, the people delivered over to the enemy, almost denationalized, and deprived of the sacrificial worship to which they had been accustomed. Yet this position of affairs is spoken of as if it were not one of very long standing. (Cf. the use of νῦν in vv. 31, 33, 42, though in the last of these instances its use may not perhaps be temporal.)
It has been objected, quite unnecessarily, that v. 38 is inconsistent with v. 53, the one implying the destruction of the temple, the other recognizing its existence; v. 84, too, may be taken as supposing priests to be still capable of performing their offices. It is even possible that the corrections of Cod. A in v. 38 may have had behind them some idea of softening a discrepancy. This supposed lack of consistency has been taken as an indication of double authorship of the Prayer and the Song; and of course, if the Prayer were a later interpolation than the Song, even the appearance of contemporary inconsistency is avoided. But if we were to decline this hypothesis, and take Prayer and Song as from the same pen, there is still no real difficulty; for v. 38 is thinking of the earthly temple, v. 53 of the heavenly. Grotius (Critici Sacri), apparently accepting the statements of v. 38 as correct, writes: "Harum rerum penuria animos venture Evangelio præparabit."
Another chronological difficulty, that of "no prophet,"[[25]] in the same verse (38) has even been offered as a 'proof' of non-canonicity (Cloquet, Articles, p. 113). So T.H. Horne in Vol. IV. of his Introduction, quoted by A. Barnes on Daniel (I. 81), says that "v. 15 (38) contains a direct falsehood"; and in Vol. II. 937 of his Introduction (ed. 1852), he asserts that the author "slipped in the part he assumed." More just is his observation that "Theodotion does not appear to have marked the discrepancy." Ball, too, joins in the condemnation, by expressing an opinion that the writer had "lost his cue" (Introd. to Song, p. 308); and Reuss, "Hier verrät sich der Verfasser" (O.T., Brunswick, 1894, VII. 166). It has been suggested (J.H. Blunt in loc.) that Ezekiel, who was both priest and prophet, had just finished his utterances, while Daniel, if he had commenced his, would, out of modesty, not reckon himself. The same commentator also attempts, still less successfully, to overcome the difficulty of "no prince." Probably, however, this merely means that no monarch was actually reigning, and that Jewish rulers were themselves ruled and their authority superseded, not that no member of the royal house or of the ruling classes was in existence. And this seems to fit in better with an early period of the Captivity than with a later age, when Simon Maccabeus is said to have had the title נָשִֹיא on his coins: and Mattathias is called ἄρχων in I Macc. ii. 17. Gesenius says in his Thesaurus under נשיא on the authority of F.P. Bayer (de numis hebraeosamaritanis, p. 171, append, p. xv.), that Simon's coins had the inscription שמצון נשיא ישראל[[26]]; but it is now doubted whether the coins formerly attributed to Simon are really of his time. (Cf. Bp. Wordsworth of Lincoln on I Macc. xv. 6.) Zöckler's idea (Comm. in loc.) that ἡγούμενος must be understood here as equivalent to "priest" is unsupported and needless. כּׄהֵן is never so translated by LXX.
[25] Cf. Ps. lxxiv. 9.