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 (?????), and 14, 16, 22 (??).
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.
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