Acts 19:33

ἐκ δὲ τοῦ ὄ., sc., τινές, cf. Acts 21:16. If we read συνεβίβασαν (see critical note), and render “instructed Alexander,” R.V., margin; cf. 1 Corinthians 2:16, and often in LXX, it seems to mean that the Jews instructed Alexander, a fellow-Jew, to come forward and dissociate himself and them from any coalition with Paul and his companions against the Diana worship (ἀπολογεῖσθαι). Erasmus takes the word to mean that the Jews had instructed him beforehand as their advocate. συμβιβάζω in Colossians 2:19; Ephesians 4:16 = to join together, to knit together, in Acts 16:10, to consider, to conclude, so Weiss thinks here that it = concluded that Alexander was the reason why they had come together; but the sentence and the context does not seem to bear out this rendering. Meyer retains T.R., and holds that Alexander was a Jewish Christian who was put forward by the Jews maliciously, hoping that he might be sacrificed to the popular tumult hence ἀπολογεῖσθαι. This latter view seems to be adopted practically by Blass (so by Knabenbauer), although he reads κατεβίβασαν (Luke 10:15), descendere coegerunt, i.e., into the theatre, as he cannot see that συνεβίβ. is intelligible; in which Grimm-Thayer agrees with him, and renders with R.V., margin, as above (see sub v.). ὁ δὲ Ἀ.: if ὁ χαλκεύς in 2 Timothy 4:14 is taken in a wider sense to mean a worker in any metal, it is, of course, possible that Alexander might be so described as one of the craftsmen of Demetrius. But the name was very common, although the omission of τις may be taken to imply that Alexander in Acts 19:33 was well known in Ephesus (cf. Acts 19:9 above). We cannot pass beyond conjecture, especially as the notice in Acts, when compared with 2 Tim., contains no further mark of identification than the similarity of name, although the Alexander in the latter passage was no doubt in some way connected with Ephesus, or the warning to Timothy against him would be without force. Against the identification see Meyer Weiss, Die Briefe Pauli an Timotheus und Titus, p. 347, and so also Holtzmann, Pastoralbriefe, in loco (who identifies the Alexander in 2 Timothy 4:14 with the Alexander in 1 Timothy 1:20). Holtzmann's view is that the author of the Pastoral Epistles, whoever he may have been, mistook the notice in Acts, and concluded that the Alexander there mentioned was a Christian, and a treacherous one, who allowed himself to be utilised by the Jews against Paul. The pseudonymous author of 2 Tim. therefore names Alexander χαλκεύς, and refers also to him the βλασφημεῖν of 1 Timothy 1:20. κατασείσας τὴν χεῖρα, see on Acts 12:17. ἀπολ.: peculiar to Luke and Paul, twice in St. Luke's Gospel, and six times in Acts, so in Romans 2:15; 2 Corinthians 12:19. In the last-named passage with same construction as here (see for various constructions Grimm-Thayer, sub v.).