Greek Testament Critical Exegetical Commentary Acts》

ἄνδρες ἰουδ.] the Jews, properly so called: native dwellers in Jerus.

οἱ κατ. ἱερ. ἅπ., the sojourners (Acts 2:5) from other parts. ἐνωτίσασθε is a word unknown to good Greek, and belonging apparently to the Alexandrine dialect. Stier quotes ‘inaurire’ from Lactantius (R. der Ap. p. 32, not.).

Verses 14-36

The discourse divides itself into two parts: 1. (Acts 2:14-21) ‘This which you hear is not the effect of drunkenness, but is the promised outpouring of the Spirit on all flesh,’—2. (Acts 2:22-36) ‘which Spirit has been shed forth by Jesus, whom you crucified, but whom God hath exalted to be Lord and Christ.’

Verse 15

15.] οὗτοι, see above.

ὥρα τρίτη] the first hour of prayer: before which no pious Jew might eat or drink: “Non licet homini gustare quidquam, antequam oraverit orationem suam.” Berachoth. f. 28. 2; Lightf., Wetst.

But perhaps we need not look further than the ordinary intent of such a defence—the improbability of intoxication at that hour of the morning. See Ecclesiastes 10:16; Isaiah 5:11; 1 Thessalonians 5:7.

Verse 16

τοῦτό ἐστιν, ‘this is,’ i.e. ‘this is the fact, at which those words pointed.’ See a somewhat similar expression, Luke 24:44.

Verse 17

17.] ἐν ταῖς ἐσχ. ἡμ. is an exposition of the μετὰ ταῦτα of the LXX and Hebrew, referring it to the days of the Messiah, as Isaiah 2:2; Micah 4:1, al. See also 2 Timothy 3:1; Hebrews 1:1.

λέγει ὁ θεός does not occur in the verse of Joel, but at the beginning of the whole passage, Acts 2:12, and is supplied by Peter here.

ἐκχεῶ] LXX-^{(17) (18)3b}: καὶ ἐκχ., B⁽¹⁹⁾¹. It is a later form of the future; see Winer, edn. 6, § 15.

ἀπὸ τοῦ πν.] In the Heb. simply “My Spirit,”— אֶת־רוּחִי .

The two clauses, κ. οἱ νεαν. and κ. οἱ πρεσβ., are transposed in the LXX.

Verse 18

Aft. δούλας om μου ^{(24) (25)1}. The Hebrew does not express it either time, but has, as in E. V., ‘the servants and handmaids.’

καὶ προφητεύσουσιν is not in LXX nor Heb.

Verse 19

ἄνω, σημεῖα, and κάτω are not in LXX nor Heb.

αἷμα κ. πῦρ.…] Not, ‘bloodshed and wasting by fire,’ as commonly interpreted:—not devastations, but prodigies, are foretold:—bloody and fiery appearances:—pillars of smoke, Heb.

Verse 20

ἡμ. κυρ.] Not the first coming of Christ,—which interpretation would run counter to the whole tenor of the Apostle’s application of the prophecy:—but clearly, His second coming; regarded in prophetic language as following close upon the outpouring of the Spirit, because it is the next great event in the divine arrangements.

The Apostles probably expected this coming very soon (see note on Romans 13:11); but this did not at all affect the accuracy of their expressions respecting it. Their days witnessed the Pentecostal effusion, which was the beginning of the signs of the end: then follows the period, KNOWN TO THE FATHER ONLY, of waiting—the Church for her Lord,—the Lord Himself till all things shall have been put under His feet,—and then the signs shall be renewed, and the day of the Lord shall come. Meantime, and in the midst of these signs, the covenant of the spiritual dispensation is, Acts 2:21—‘Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord, shall be saved.’ The gates of God’s mercy are thrown open in Christ to all people:—no barrier is placed,—no union with any external association or succession required: the promise is to individuals, AS individuals: πᾶς ὃς ἐάν: which individual universality, though here by the nature of the circumstances spoken within the limits of the outward Israel, is afterwards as expressly asserted of Jew and Gentile, Romans 1:17, where see note.

Verse 22

τὸν ναζωραῖον] Not emphatically used by way of contrast to what follows, as Beza, Wetst., &c.; but only as the ordinary appellation of Jesus by the Jews, see John 18:5; John 18:7; ch. Acts 22:8; Acts 26:9.

ἀπό, not for ὑπό, here or any where else (see Winer, edn. 6, § 47, b): but signifying the source whence, not merely the agency by which, the deed has place. See reff., and especially James 1:13.

ἀποδεδειγμένον] ‘demonstratum,’ more than ‘approved’ (E. V.):—shewn to be that which He claimed to be. ἀποδεδ. must be taken with ἀπὸ τ. θεοῦ: not, as some have divided the words, ἄνδρ. ἀπὸ τ. θεοῦ, ἀποδ. κ. τ. λ.: Galatians 1:1 is no justification of this, for there ἀπό refers to ἀπόστολος,—and certainly Peter would never have barely thus named our Lord ‘a man from God.’ The whole connexion of the passage would besides be broken by this rendering: that connexion being, that the Man Jesus of Nazareth was by God demonstrated, by God wrought in among you, by God’s counsel delivered to death, by God raised up (which raising up is argued on till Acts 2:32, then taken up again), by God (Acts 2:36), finally, made Lord and Christ. This was the process of argument then with the Jews,—proceeding on the identity of a man whom they had seen and known,—and then mounting up from His works and His death and His resurrection, to His glorification,—all THE PURPOSE AND DOING OF GOD. But if His divine origin, or even His divine mission, be stated at the outset, we break this climacterical sequence, and lose the power of the argument. The ἀποδεδειγμένον ( εἶναι) ἀπὸ θεοῦ of Dr. Bloomfield is of course worse still.

οἷς ( ἃ) ἐποίησεν διʼ αὐτ. ὁ θ.] not, as De Wette, a low view of the miracles wrought by Jesus, nor inconsistent with John 2:11; but in strict accordance with the progress of our Lord through humiliation to glory, and with His own words in that very Gospel (John 5:19), which is devoted to the great subject, the manifestation, by the Father, of the glory of the Son. This side of the subject is here especially dwelt on in argument with these Jews, to exhibit (see above) the whole course of Jesus of Nazareth, as the ordinance and doing of THE GOD OF ISRAEL.

Verse 23

ἔκδοτον] by whom, is not said, but was supplied by the hearers. τῇ ὡρισμ. &c. are not to be joined to ἔκδοτον as agents—the dative is that of accordance and appointment, not of agency:—see Winer, edn. 6, § 31. 6, b, and ch. Acts 15:1; 2 Peter 1:21.

δ. χειρὸς ἀνόμων] viz. of the Roman soldiers, see reff.

προσπήξαντες] The harshness and unworthiness of the deed are strongly set forth by a word expressing the mechanical act merely, having nailed up, as in contrast with the former clause, from ἰησοῦν to ὑμῶν.

Peter lays the charge on the multitude, because they abetted their rulers,—see ch. Acts 3:17, where this is fully expressed: not for the far-fetched reason given by Olshausen, that ‘all mankind were in fact guilty of the death of Jesus:’ in which case, as Meyer well observes (and the note in Olsh.’s last edn. ii. p. 666, does not answer this), Peter must have said ‘we,’ not ‘you.’

Verse 24

οὐκ ἦν δυν. depends for its proof on the γάρ which follows.

Verse 25

25.] εἰς αὐτόν, not ‘of Him,’ but in allusion to Him. The 16th Psalm was not by the Rabbis applied to the Messiah: but Peter here proves to them that, if it is to be true in its highest and proper meaning of any one, it must be of Him. We are met at every turn by the shallow objections of the Rationalists, who seem incapable of comprehending the principle on which the sayings of David respecting himself are referred to Christ. To say, with De Wette, that Peter’s proof lies not in any historical but only in an ideal meaning of the Psalm, is entirely beside the subject. To interpret the sayings of David (or indeed those of any one else) ‘historically,’ i.e. solely as referring to the occasion which gave rise to them, and having no wider reference, would be to establish a canon of interpretation wholly counter to the common sense of mankind. Every one, placed in any given position, when speaking of himself as in that position, speaks what will refer to others similarly situated, and most pointedly to any one who shall in any especial and pre-eminent way stand in that position. Applying even this common rule to David’s sayings, the applicability of them to Christ will be legitimized:—but how much more, when we take into account the whole circumstances of David’s theocratic position, as the prophetic representative and type of Christ! Whether the Messiah was present or not to the mind of the Psalmist, is of very little import: in some cases He plainly was: in others, as here, David’s words, spoken of himself and his circumstances, could only be in their highest and literal sense true of the great Son of David who was to come. David often spoke concerning himself; but THE SPIRIT WHO SPOKE IN DAVID, εἰς τὸν χριστόν. The citation is verbatim from the LXX (except in the order of μου ἡ καρ.: see var. readd.): the Vatican, Sinaitic, and Alexandrine copies agree throughout, except in ᾅδην ^{(30) (31)} ( τον αδ. ⁽³²⁾) and ᾅδου (A), and εὐφροσύνης (^{(33) (34)}) and - νην (A), between which our MSS. also vary.

ἵνα μὴ σαλευθῶ] Heb. ‘I shall not be moved.’

Verse 26

26. ἡ γλῶσσά μου] Heb. כְּבוֹדִי, ‘my glory:’ so in Psalms 108:1, where our prayer-book version renders “I will give praise with the best member that I have.” Cf. also Psalms 57:8 .

Verse 27

Verse 28

πληρώσεις κ. τ. λ.: Heb. ‘Fulness of joys (is) with thy presence.’

These two last clauses refer to the Resurrection and the Ascension respectively.

Verse 29

ἐξόν] supply, not ἔστω, but ἐστίν, I may, &c.

The title ‘Patriarch’ is only here applied to David, as the progenitor of the kingly race:—Abraham and the sons of Jacob are so called in the N. T. reff. In the LXX, the word is used of chief men, and heads of families, with the exception of 2 Chronicles 23:20, where it represents “captains of hundreds.”

ὅτι] not, because; but that,—contains the subject of εἰπεῖν, and is that for which the apology is made.

We learn from 1 Kings 2:10, and Nehemiah 3:16, that David was buried at Jerusalem, in the city of David, i.e. the stronghold of Zion, 2 Samuel 5:7.

Josephus, Antt. vii. 15. 3, gives an account of the high priest Hyrcanus, when besieged by Antiochus Eusebes,—and afterwards King Herod, opening the tomb and taking treasure from it. See also xiii. 8. 4; xvi. 7. 1; B. J. i. 2. 5. Dio Cassius (lxix. 14) mentions, among the prodigies which preceded Hadrian’s war, that the tomb of Solomon (the same with that of David, see Jos. Antt. xvi. 7. 1) fell down. Jerome mentions (Epist. xlvi. (xvii.) ad Marcellam, vol. i. p. 209) that the tomb of David was visited in his time (the end of the fourth century).

Verse 30

30.] προφήτης, in the stricter sense, a foreteller of future events by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

εἰδώς] See 2 Samuel 7:12. The words are not cited from the LXX, but rendered from the Hebrew. On the principle of interpretation of this prophecy, see above on Acts 2:25.

Verse 31

31.] The word προϊδών distinctly asserts the prophetic consciousness of David in the composition of this Psalm. But of what sort that prophetic consciousness was, may be gathered from this same Apostle, 1 Peter 1:10-12; that it was not a distinct knowledge of the events which they foretold, but only a conscious reference in their minds to the great promises of the covenant, in the expression of which they were guided by the Holy Spirit of prophecy to say things pregnant with meaning not patent to themselves but to us.

Verse 32

οὗ] either masc., see ch. Acts 1:8; Acts 13:31,—or neut. The former seems most probable as including the latter. ‘We are His witnesses,’ would imply, ‘We testify to this His work,’ which work implied the Resurrection.

πάντες, first and most properly the Twelve: but, secondarily, the whole body of believers, all of whom, at this time, had probably seen the Lord since His Resurrection; see 1 Corinthians 15:6.

Verse 33

τῇ δεξιᾷ] by the right hand, not ‘to the right hand.’ The great end of this speech is to shew forth (see above) the GOD OF ISRAEL as the doer of all these things. However well the sense ‘to’ might seem to agree with the ἐκ δεξιῶν of Acts 2:34, we must not set aside a very suitable sense, nor violate syntax (for the construction is entirely unexampled in Hellenistic as well as prose classical Greek) in order to suit an apparent adaptation. The reference is carried on by the word δεξιά, though it be not in exactly the same position in the two cases. And the ἀνέβη εἰς τοὺς οὐρ. of Acts 2:34 prepares the way for the ἐκ δεξιῶν following without any harshness.

On the poetic dative after verbs of approach, see Musgr., Phœnissæ, 310 (303, Matth.), and Hermann, Antig. 234. See also ch. Acts 5:31, and Winer (who defends the construction), edn. 6, § 31. 5. Wordsw. denies that the δεξιὰ θεοῦ is ever specified in the N. T. as the instrument by which He works. But he has omitted to state that this and the similarly ambiguous place, ch. Acts 5:31, are the only real instances of the expression being used, all the rest being local, ἐκ δεξιῶν or ἐν δεξιᾷ: so that his dictum goes for nothing. And in the LXX the use of God’s right hand as the instrument is very frequent: cf. Exodus 15:6; Exodus 15:12; Ps. 17:36; 59:5 (where the dat. is used as here), and about 20 other places; Isaiah 48:13; Isaiah 63:12, &c. After this, the objection, when applied to a speech so full of O. T. spirit and diction as this, would, even if valid as regards the N. T., be irrelevant.

ἐπαγγελίαν] Christ is said to have received from the Father the promise above cited from Joel, which is spoken of His days. This, and not of course the declarations made by Himself to the same effect, is here referred to, though doubtless those were in Peter’s mind. The very word, ἐξέχεεν, refers to ἐκχεῶ above, Acts 2:17.

τοῦτο, ‘this influence,’ this merely; leaving to his hearers the inference, that this, which they saw and heard, must be none other than the effusion of the Spirit.

βλέπετε need not imply, as Dr. Burton thinks, that “there was some visible appearance, which the people saw as well as the apostles:”—very much of the effect of the descent of the Spirit would be visible,—the enthusiasm and gestures of the speakers, for instance; not, however, the tongues of flame,—for then none could have spoken as in Acts 2:13.

Verse 34

34.] This exaltation of Christ is also proved from prophecy—and from the same passage with which Jesus Himself had silenced His enemies. See notes, Matthew 22:41 ff.

δέ is not ‘for,’ which would destroy the whole force of the sentence: the Apostle says, For David himself is not ascended into the heavens,—as he would be if the former prophecy applied to him: BUT he himself says, removing all doubt on the subject, &c. The rendering δέ, for, makes it appear as if the ἀνέβη εἰς τ. οὐρ. were a mistaken inference from Psalms 110:1, whereas that passage is adduced to preclude its being made from the other.

Verse 36

36.] THE CONCLUSION FROM ALL THAT HAS BEEN SAID.

πᾶς οἶκος ἰσρ. = πᾶς ὁ οἶκ. ἰσρ., οἶκος being a familiar noun used anarthrously: see Ephesians 2:21, note, and Winer, edn. 6, § 19, who however does not give οἶκος in his list: the whole house of Israel—for all hitherto said has gone upon proofs and sayings belonging to Israel, and to all Israel.

ὁ θεὸς ἐποίησεν, as before, is the ground-tone of the discourse.

κύριον, from Acts 2:34.

χριστόν, in the full and glorious sense in which that term was prophetically known. The same is expressed ch. Acts 5:31 by ἀρχηγὸν κ. σωτῆρα ὕψωσεν.

The final clause sets in the strongest and plainest light the fact to which the discourse testifies—ending with ὃν ὑμεῖς ἐσταυρώσατε,—the remembrance most likely to carry compunction to their hearts. ‘In clausula orationis iterum illis exprobrat quod Eum crucifixerint, ut majori conscientiæ dolore tacti ad remedium aspirent.’ Calvin in loc. ‘Aculeus in fine.’ Bengel.

Verse 37

37. κατενύγ.] κατανύσσω is exactly ‘compungo.’ The compunction arose from the thought that they had rejected and crucified Him who was now so powerful, and under whose feet they, as enemies, would be crushed.

‘Concionis fructum Lucas refert, ut sciamus non modo in linguarum varietate exsertam fuisse Spiritus Sancti virtutem, sed in eorum etiam cordibus qui audiebant.’ Calvin.

ποιήσωμεν, the deliberative subjunctive,—cf. Winer, edn. 6, § 41, a. 4, b.—What most we do?

Verses 37-41

Verse 38

The miserable absurdity of rendering μεταν., or ‘pœnitentiam agite,’ by ‘do penance,’ or understanding it as referring to a course of external rites, is well exposed by this passage—in which the internal change of heart and purpose is insisted on, to be testified by admission into the number of Christ’s followers. See Calvin’s note.

βαπτισθήτω] Here, on the day of Pentecost, we have the first mention and administration of CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. Before, there had been the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, by John, Luke 3:3; but now we have the important addition ἐπὶ τῷ ὀνόμ. ἰησοῦ χριστοῦ,—on the Name—i.e. on the confession of that which the Name implies, and into the benefits and blessings which the Name implies. The Apostles and first believers were not thus baptized, because, ch. Acts 1:5, they had received the BAPTISM BY THE HOLY GHOST, the thing signified, which superseded that by water, the outward and visible sign.

The result of the baptism to which he here exhorts them, preceded by repentance and accompanied by faith in the forgiveness of sins in Christ, would be, the receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Verse 39