The weapons of sarcasm
and contemptuous treatment are used with success, even as Elijah
employed them on Baal and his worshippers at an earlier time (I. Kings
xviii. 27). A desire to convert the heathen, by proving the absurdity of
their idol-worship, may be inferred from the last clause of v. 27,
compared with vv. 5, 25. As the history of Susanna deals with errors of
Jewish practice, so does this writing with the errors of heathenism.
The providence of God in protecting those who suffer for His sake is
clearly inculcated in the latter portion of the work. A sense of this
would, with other results, give confidence in the fight against
idolatry; the more needed because Bel was evidently a very popular deity
with high and low, and difficult to dislodge. The frequent compounding
of 'Bel' with proper names (Belshazzar and Belteshazzar)[64] shews the
regard in which he was held. Compare the similar compounding of
'Jehovah' amongst the Jews. But, although Bel was deemed a beneficent
deity, being, as Gesenius calls him (s.
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