the opinion of some, a translation from an original Hebrew document.  This part contains, after an introductory notice, a confession of sin with prayer for deliverance.  The second part begins with an address to the covenant people, in which they are rebuked for neglecting the teachings of divine wisdom, and encouraged with the hope of returning prosperity when they shall obey her voice.  Chaps. 3:9-4:8.  Zion is then introduced lamenting over the desolations which God has brought upon her and her children (chap. 4:9-4:29), and afterwards comforting them with the hope of certain deliverance and enlargement (chaps. 4:30-5:9).  It is generally agreed that the second part was originally written in Greek, and some think that the same is true of the first part also.

18.  There is another Epistle of Baruch preserved to us in the Syriac, which is inserted in the London and Paris Polyglotts.  It is addressed to the nine and a half tribes, and “made up of commonplaces of warning, encouragement, and exhortation.”  Smith’s Bib.  Dict., Art.  Baruch.

19.  There is a spurious Epistle of Jeremiah which appears in the Vulgate and our English version as the sixth chapter of Baruch.  It is entitled:  “Copy of an epistle which Jeremiah sent to those who were to be led captives into Babylon by the king of the Babylonians to make announcement to them, as it was commanded him by God.”  It purports to be a warning to these captives against the idolatrous practices which they shall witness in Babylon, and is made up of a long discourse on the impotence of the idols which the heathen worship, written in a rhetorical style, in imitation of Jer. 10:1-16.  Its author is supposed to have been a Hellenistic Jew who lived towards the end of the Maccabean period.

VIII.  ADDITIONS TO THE BOOK OF DANIEL.

20.  The Greek version of the book of Daniel, besides many departures from the Hebrew and Chaldee original, contains three large additions.  The first of these is:  The Prayer of Azarias, and the Song of the Three Children in the Fiery Furnace, which is appended to the third chapter.  The second is:  The History of Susanna, who is exhibited as a pattern of chastity, and was delivered from the machinations of her enemies through the wisdom of Daniel.  This is placed sometimes before the first chapter of Daniel, and sometimes after chapter 12.  The third addition is:  The Story of Bel and the Dragon, which stands at the end of the book, and is falsely ascribed in the Septuagint to the prophet Habakkuk.  Its design is to show the folly of idolatry.  According to Keil, these three pieces were composed in Egypt towards the end of the third, or the beginning of the second century before Christ.

IX.  THE PRAYER OF MANASSES.

21.  A genuine prayer of Manasseh, king of Judah, existed at the time when the books of Chronicles were composed. 2 Chron. 33:18, 19.  But the existing prayer of the Apocrypha, though upon the whole beautiful and appropriate, cannot claim to be a true representative of that prayer.  “The author,” says Keil, “was a pious Jew who lived at all events before Christ, though his age cannot be more accurately determined.”