" A consistent religious ground is maintained
throughout by the three; there is for them no "doing at Rome as Rome
does" in vital matters of religion. And their condition is evidently
compassionated by God, their faithfulness approved, amid the
persecutions of a foreign land.
Considerable talent and art in devotional composition are manifested in
confession, petition, and praise--talent and art of which the Christian
Church has widely availed herself from a very early period. The tone of
Azarias' prayer is not discordant with Daniel's description of his own
prayer in ix. 20, nor with the prayer itself immediately preceding that
verse, either in sentiment or phraseology. They may well have come from
the same editor, whether the prime author of the whole book or not.
Verse 16 (39) apparently contains phrases culled from Pss. xxxiv. 18,
li. 17. M. Parker on Deut. xxviii. 56 (_Bibliotheca Biblica_, Oxf. 1735)
thinks that the declaration of the three in v. 9 (32) corresponds with
Deut. xxviii. 49, 50, being in fact a public acknowledgment that
national impiety had brought upon them the distress in which they were
at present involved.
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