Acts 17:24

ὁ Θεὸς ὁ ποιήσας : “the God Who made all,” R.V., the definiteness of the words and the revelation of God as Creator stand in marked contrast to the imperfect conception of the divine nature grasped by the Athenian populace, or even by the philosophers: ἐφθέγξατο φωνὴν μίαν, διʼ ἧς πάντα κατέστρεψε τὰ τῶν φιλοσόφων. οἱ μὲν γὰρ Ἐπικούρειοι αὐτόματά φασιν εἶναι τὰ πάντα, καὶ ἀπὸ ἀτόμων συνεστάναι · οἱ δὲ Στωϊκοὶ σῶμα καὶ ἐκπύρωσιν · ὁ δὲ ἔργον Θεοῦ λέγει κόσμον καὶ πάντα τὰ ἐν αὐτῷ. Ὁρᾷς συντομίαν, καὶ ἐν συντομίᾳ σαφήνειαν. St. Paul's language is that of a Jew, a Monotheist, and is based upon Genesis 1:1; Exodus 20:11; Isaiah 45:7; Nehemiah 9:6, etc., but his use of the word κόσμος (only here in Acts, only three times in St. Luke's Gospel) is observable. The word is evidently not used in the moral sense, or in the sense of moral separation from God, which is so common in St. John, and which is sometimes employed by the Synoptists, and it may well have been chosen by Paul as a word familiar to his hearers. Both by Aristotle and Plato it had been used as including the orderly disposition of the heaven and the earth (according to some, Pythagoras had first used the word of the orderly system of the universe), and in this passage οὐρανοῦ καὶ γῆς may perhaps both be taken or included in the κόσμος, cf. Acts 4:24; Acts 14:15. In the LXX κόσμος is never used as a synonym of the world, i.e., the universe (but cf. Proverbs 17:6, Grimm, sub v.), except in the Apocryphal books, where it is frequently used of the created universe, Wis 7:17; Wis 9:3; 2Ma 7:23; 2Ma 8:18; 4Ma 5:25 (24), etc., Grimm, sub v., and Cremer, Wörterbuch. οὗτος : “He being Lord of heaven and earth,” R.V., more emphatic and less ambiguous than A.V., “seeing that”. ὑπάρχων “being the natural Lord” (Farrar), “He, Lord as He is, of heaven and earth” (Ramsay); see Plummer's note on Luke 8:41; the word is Lucan, see above on οὐρ. καὶ γῆς κ., cf. Isaiah 45:7; Jeremiah 10:16, and 1 Corinthians 10:26. οὐκ ἐν χειροποιήτοις ναοῖς κ.: as the Maker of all things, and Lord of heaven and earth, He is contrasted with the gods whose dwelling was in temples made with hands, and limited to a small portion of space, cf. 1 Kings 8:27; Jos., Ant., viii., 4, 2, and St. Stephen's words, Acts 7:48, of which St. Paul here as elsewhere may be expressing his reminiscence, cf. for the thought Cicero, Leg., ii., 10, and in early Christian writers Arnobius and Minucius Felix (Wetstein), see also Mr. Page's note.