Acts 11:28

Ἄγαβος : on derivation see W.H [245], ii., 313, from עגב “to love”; or from חגב “a locust,” Ezra 2:45; Nehemiah 7:48, with rough breathing Ἅγ. W.H [246] follow Syriac and read the former as in T.R., so Weiss; Blass doubtful; Klostermann would connect it with Ἀγαυός, Probleme im Aposteltexte, p. 10. As a Jewish prophet he would naturally use the symbolic methods of a Jeremiah or an Ezekiel, see on Acts 21:10-11. On insertion in [247] see critical notes. μέλλειν ἔσεσθαι : future infinitive only used in N.T. with μέλλειν in this one phrase, and only so in Acts, cf. Acts 24:15; Acts 27:10. In Acts 23:30 μέλλειν omitted (although in T.R.), and in Acts 24:25 ἔσεσθαι omitted (although in T.R.). Klostermann, Vindiciæ Lucanæ, p. 51, Simcox, Language of the N. T., p. 120, and Viteau, Le Grec du N. T., p. 158 (1893). λιμὸν : masculine in Luke 4:25, and so in common usage, but in Doric usage, as it is called, feminine, and so also in later Greek; feminine in Luke 15:14 and here; see critical notes; Blass, Gram., p. 26. ἐφʼ ὅλην τὴν οἰκ. the civilised world, i.e., the Roman Empire. Cf. Acts 24:5, and Luke 2:1, see Plummer's note on Luke 4:5 (and Hackett's attempt, in loco, to limit the expression), and Ramsay, Was Christ born at Bethlehem? p. 118. We have ample evidence as to a widespread dearth over various parts of the Roman Empire, to which Suetonius, Dion Cassius, Tacitus, and Eusebius all bear witness, in the reign of Claudius; and in no other reign do we find such varied allusions to periodical famines, “assiduae sterilitates,” Suetonius, Claudius, xviii., cf. Dion Cassius, lx., 11; Tac., Ann., xii., 43, etc. These and other references are given by Schürer, Jewish People, div. i., vol. ii., p. 170, E.T. (so also by O. Holtzmann, Neutest. Zeitgeschichte, p. 124), but instead of drawing from these varied references the inference that the author of Acts had ample justification for his statement as to the prevalence of famine over the Roman Empire, he takes him to task for speaking of a famine “over the whole world”. See Ramsay, St. Paul, pp. 48, 49, and also Was Christ Born at Bethlehem? pp. 251, 252, cf. Acts 11:29-30. At least there is no ground to suppose, with Clemen and others, that the writer of Acts was here dependent on Josephus for the mention of the famine which that historian confined to Judæa, but which the writer of Acts, or rather Clemen's Redactor Antijudaicus, magnified according to his usual custom.

[245] Westcott and Hort's The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.

[246] Westcott and Hort's The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.

[247] Codex Claromontanus (sæc. vi.), a Græco-Latin MS. at Paris, edited by Tischendorf in 1852.