Acts 17:27

ζητεῖν = ὅπως ζητῶσι, telic infinitive, Winer-Moulton, xliv. 1. Κύριον, see critical note. Θεόν : the more fitting word before this audience Ramsay renders “the God”. εἰ ἄρα γε : “if haply,” A. and R.V., ἄρα strengthened by γε; in classical Greek we have ἆρα followed by γε, but not ἄρα. This ἄρα and ἄρα γε are generally regarded as = Latin si forte (Blass, Grammatik, p. 211), although Simcox, Language of the New Testament, pp. 180, 181, in admitting this, is careful to point out that it is misleading to regard ἄρα as = forte. Alford (so Page) maintains that the expression here, as in Acts 8:22, indicates a contingency which is apparently not very likely to happen. On the other hand Rendall holds that the particle here, as in Acts 8:22, should be rendered not perhaps or haply, but indeed: “if they might indeed feel after him,” etc., expressing a very real intention of God's providence, the optative pointing to the fact that this intention had not yet been realised (pp. 66, 110), cf. also Mark 11:13, and in 1 Corinthians 15:15, εἴπερ ἄρα (see further Blass, Gram., pp. 254, 267; Burton, pp. 106, 111). With the whole passage, Wis 13:6 should be compared. On St. Paul's study of the Book of Wisdom at some time in his life see Sanday and Headlam, Romans, p. 52. ψηλαφήσειαν, Æolic aorist, the verb is used several times in LXX for the act of groping in the dark, Deuteronomy 28:29; Job 5:14; Job 12:25; Isaiah 59:10; cf. its use also in classical Greek, Odys., ix., 416; so Plato, Phædo, 99 B, where it is used of vague guesses at truth (Wendt, Page). The word would therefore fitly express the thought of men stretching lame hands of faith and groping, and calling to what they feel is Lord of all. Weiss finds the idea of the word as used here, not in the LXX as above, but in 1 John 1:1, of some palpable assurance, which was everywhere possible in a world made by God, Acts 17:24; Romans 1:20, and where men's dwellings had been apportioned by Him. But the word might still be used in the above sense, since the recognition of God in His Creation is after all only a partial recognition, and not the highest knowledge of Him; and the inscription “To an Unknown God” testified in itself how imperfect that recognition had been. For the meaning of the verb in modern Greek see Kennedy, p. 156. καίτοιγε, see critical note, καί γε, cf. Acts 2:18, quin etiam (quamvis καίτοιγε “vix aptum,” Blass). The word ψηλαφ. had intimated “et proximum esse Deum et oculis occultum” (Blass, Knabenbauer), and the Apostle now proclaims the nearness of God, not only in creation, in its maintenance and preservation, but in the spiritual being of man: “Closer is he than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet”. οὐ μακρὰν : the word implies not mere local nearness, but spiritual, cf. Jeremiah 23:23, and Ephesians 2:13. With this we may compare Seneca, Ep. Mor., xliv. 1. “God is near thee; He is with thee; He is within” (quoted by Lightfoot, Philippians, p. 290). The relation of man to God is a personal relationship: God is not “careless of the single life”: ἀπὸ ἑνὸς ἑκάστον ἡμῶν, “from each one of us,” R.V. The words may well have struck a responsive chord in the hearts, not only of some in the crowd, but of some of the Stoics who were listening, contradictory and incongruous as their system was, with its strange union of a gross material pantheism, and the expression of belief in the fatherly love and goodness of God (see further Lightfoot, u. s., p. 298, and Curtius, Gesammelte Abhandlungen, ii., 530, 531).