29-68. The Song of praise itself, which may be subdivided thus: God directly addressed in blessing (29-34); after all God's works, celestial objects are addressed, including Angels[[4]] (35-41); objects of the lower heaven or atmosphere are called upon, including those immediately concerned, wind and dew being placed next to fire and heat (42-51); then the earth[[5]] and its natural features, and the animals inhabiting it, are called upon (52-59); then the human race, as a whole and in various classes, down to the three children themselves (60-66). In conclusion God is extolled for His ever-enduring mercy in phrases culled from the Psalter (67, 68).
[4] "The first and most gifted of creatures" (M'Swiney, Psalms and Canticles, 1901, p. 644).
[5] Perhaps in default of better explanation the "earth" verse may have been put into the third person in order to mark the transition from things celestial to those terrestrial.
The tendency of the arrangement of the Song proper is to descend from generals to particulars. It has a refrain at the end of each verse, slightly differing in those preliminary verses which are addressed to the Lord Himself, and wanting in the last three. The rendering of the refrain in the preliminary verses does not seem very happy in its English (A.V. and K.V.).
Title And Position.
Title.
Forming, as it does, an integral portion of the third chapter of the Greek Daniel, the principal MSS. give the Song, in that place, no independent title. It falls of course under the general title of the whole Book, Daniel.
Van Ess in his LXX (Lips. 1835) entitles it Προσευχὴ Ἀζαρίου καὶ ὕμνος τῶν τριῶν, but as he puts this heading in curved brackets it is possibly merely his own insertion. 'B' is the codex which he is professing to follow in his text; but that MS. is credited with no such title in Dr. Swete's Greek Old Testament; nor do Holmes and Parsons shew any knowledge of it as existing in any of their MSS.
In the Veronese Graeco-Latin Psalter it is headed Ὕμνος τῶν πατέρων ἡμῶν, and in the Turin Psalter Ὕμνος τῶν τριῶν παιδῶν, which title it inserts again at v. 57, strangely regarding that verse as the commencement of a fresh canticle with a new number, ιβ. Churton (Uncan. and Apocr. Script., p. 391) suggests that the former title "may have been wrongly transferred from Ecclus. xliv." at the head of which it stands. He also calls it the title in the Alexandrian Psalter—the Odes, presumably that is, at the end. But the title to Ecclus. xliv. is simply πατέρων ὕμνος, so that the likelihood of the transfer, deemed possible by Churton, having taken place is very small.
In the Odes, at the end of Cod. A, two canticles are extracted from this piece; the first (Ode IX.) entitled Προσευχὴ Ἀζαρίου, the second (Ode X.) Ὕμνος τῶν πατέρων ἡμῶν, each corresponding with the name given to it. In the office of Eastern Lauds the two parts have separate titles, being assigned to different days of the week (D.C.A. art. Canticle).