Acts 16:25

κατὰ δὲ τὸ μεσονύκτιον : neuter of the adjective μεσονύκτιος, cf. Acts 20:7; Luke 11:5, elsewhere only in Mark 13:35, often in medical writers, also in Arist., Strabo, Plutarch; in LXX, Judges 16:3 A, Ruth 3:8, Ps. 118:62 (Isaiah 59:10). προσευχόμενοι, see on chap. Acts 12:12. ὕμνουν with accusative Hebrews 2:12 only, cf. Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16, Trench, Syn [297], ii., 129. “Hoc erat gaudium in Spiritu sancto: in carcere ubi nec genua flectere, nec manus tollere poterant” Wetstein, cf. too the often-quoted words of Tertullian Ad Martyres, ii.: “Nihil crus sentit in nervo quum animus in cœlo est,” and Chrys., Hom., xxxvi., “This let us also do, and we shall open for ourselves not a prison, but heaven. If we pray, we shall be able even to open heaven. Elias both shut and opened heaven by prayer.” ἐπηκροῶντο : used by Plato (Comicus), and referred to by Kennedy, Sources of N. T. Greek, p. 73, as one of the rare words mainly colloquial common to N.T. and the comic poets; it occurs also in Lucian, and in Test., xii., Patr. Not found in LXX (but the cognate noun of hearing so as to obey in 1 Samuel 15:22). But it is peculiar to St. Luke in N.T., and it was the technical word in medical language for auscultation; the word might therefore naturally be employed by him to denote attentive hearing as God “gave songs in the night”. Both verbs ὕμν. and ἐπηκ. are in the imperfect; they were singing, and the prisoners were listening, when the earthquake happened.

[297] synonym, synonymous.