v. 33 Ο´. Delitzsch suggests (p. 27) הששי ויהי ויהי ביום for the beginning of this verse, with much likelihood.
v. 36 Θ. The reading χειρὸς in A for κορυφῆς may have arisen from קדקדו being corrupted by homœoteleuton into קדו, for which A has read ידו. A. Scholz's notion of explaining this by Isai. xlv. 1 (where δεξιά is used, not χείρ) is unsatisfactory.
v. 40 Ο´, Θ. The attempt to explain (Marshall in Hastings' D.B. art. Bel and the Dragon) the 'in medio' of Vulg. v. 39 by a reading בגו for בגב is not very likely, since they do not occur in corresponding clauses.
v. 42 Ο´. Ἐξήγαγεν is used of the king here in a good sense, in v. 22 in a bad one. This is possibly a rendering of הרציא in the latter case, of הצלה in the former.
The Greek of the writer is hardly such as we should expect, unless he was narrating a story which had reached him from a Hebrew source. The frequency with which verbs occur very early in the construction of sentences is a point in favour of a Semitic original, which does appear to have been dwelt upon, e.g. vv. 11, 20 (Ο´), and 14, 16, 22 (Θ).
It is a matter of considerable nicety to estimate the value of these and similar indications. They are not decisive. They tell with varying force upon varying minds; but they distinctly tend, in the writer's opinion, to increase the probability of the Greek having been grounded upon a Hebrew or an Aramaic form of the story, the likelihood of the latter being slightly the stronger.
In view of the introduction of Habakkuk into the story of the Dragon, Delitzsch's opinion as to the similarity of Daniel's Hebrew to the Hebrew of that prophet (see Streane, Age of Macc. p. 262) becomes of importance. A. Scholz, too, is of opinion (p. 146) that the Habakkuk title makes for a Hebrew original, because the real prophecy of Habakkuk was undoubtedly Hebrew, and this piece, whether genuine or fictitious, would hardly have been appended in another language.
The LXX version was certainly known to Theodotion, since he copies much of it, yet not quite so largely as in the Song of the Three. But it is evident that he had other documents or traditions to use, of which he freely availed himself; possibly some previous translation other than LXX, as has been suggested under Susanna ('Date and Place,' p. 114). There seems nothing in either Greek recension to imply that the two parts of Bel and the Dragon (separated in Luther's version) are not by the same hand.
It is noteworthy that the word ἔκδοτον, applied to Bel when handed over to Daniel (v. 22, Θ), is used of our Lord in Acts ii. 23, these two being its only Biblical occurrences.