Acts 2:17

ἐν ταῖς ἐσχ. ἡμέρ., i.e., the time immediately preceding the Parousia of the Messiah (Weber, Jüdische Theologie, p. 372). The expression is introduced here instead of μετὰ ταῦτα, LXX, to show that St. Peter saw in the outpouring of the Spirit the fulfilment of Joel's prophecy, Acts 2:28-31 (LXX), and the dawn of the period preceding the return of Christ in glory, Isaiah 2:2; Micah 4:1 (2 Timothy 3:1; James 5:3; Hebrews 1:1). λέγει ὁ Θεός : introduced possibly from Joel 2:12, although wanting in LXX and Hebrew. ἐκχεῶ : Hellenistic future, Blass, Grammatik des N. G., pp. 41, 42, 58, cf. Acts 10:45; Titus 3:6. In LXX the word is used as here, not only in Joel, but in Zach. Acts 12:10, Sir 18:11; Sir 24:33, but very often of pouring forth anger. ἀπὸ τοῦ πνεύμ. μου, “I will pour forth of my Spirit,” R.V., so in LXX, but in Heb., “I will pour out my Spirit”. The partitive ἀπό may be accounted for by the thought that the Spirit of God considered in its entirety remains with God, and that men acquire only a certain portion of its energies (so Wendt, Holtzmann). Or the partitive force of the word may be taken as signifying the great diversity of the Spirit's gifts and operations. See also Viteau, Le Grec du N. T., p. 151 (1893). πᾶσαν σάρκα, i.e., all men; but this expression in itself suggests a contrast beween the weakness and imperfection of humanity and the all-powerful working of the divine Spirit. The expression is Hebraistic, cf. Luke 3:6; John 17:2, and Sir 45:4, and often in LXX. In Joel's prophecy the expression only included the people of Israel, although the divine Spirit should be no longer limited to particular prophets or favoured individuals, but should be given to the whole nation. If we compare Acts 2:39, the expression would include at least the members of the Diaspora, wherever they might be, but it is doubtful whether we can take it as including the heathen as such in St. Peter's thoughts, although Hilgenfeld is so convinced that the verse Acts 2:39 can only refer to the heathen that he refers all the words from καὶ πᾶσι to the end of the verse to his “author to Theophilus”. Spitta on the other hand regards the expression as referring only to the Jews of the Diaspora; if the Gentiles had been intended, he thinks that we should have had τοῖς εἰς μακρὰν ἔθνεσιν as in Acts 22:21. Undoubtedly we have an analogous expression to Acts 2:39 in Ephesians 2:13, οἳ ποτε ὄντες μακράν, where the words evidently refer to the heathen, but we must not expect the universalism of St. Paul in the first public address of St. Peter: for him it is still ὁ θεὸς ἡμῶν, “our God,” Acts 2:39, and even the expression, πρῶτον, Acts 3:26, in which Holtzmann sees a reference to the extension of the Messianic blessings to the Jew first and then to the Gentile, need only mean that in St. Peter's view these blessings could only be secured by the Gentile through becoming a proselyte to the faith of Israel. It is thus only that St. Peter's subsequent conduct becomes intelligible. The reading αὐτῶν instead of ὑμῶν in the next clause before both υἱοὶ and θυγατέρες if it is adopted (Blass [123]) would seem to extend the scope of the prophecy beyond the limits of Israel proper. θυγατέρες : as Anna is called προφῆτις, Luke 2:36, so too in the Christian Church the daughters of Philip are spoken of as προφητεύουσαι, Acts 21:9. νεανίσκοι : in LXX and Hebrew the order is reversed. It may be that Bengel is right in drawing the distinction thus: “Apud juvenes maximi vigent sensus externi, visionibus opportuni: apud senes sensus interni, somniis accommodati”. But he adds “Non tamen adolescentes a somniis, neque sensus a visionibus excluduntur” (see also Keil, in loco), and so Overbeck, Winer, Wendt see in the words simply an instance of the Hebrew love of parallelism. καί γε (in LXX) = Hebrew וְגַם only here in N.T. and in Acts 17:27 W.H [124] (and possibly in Luke 19:42) = “and even,” Blass, Grammatik des N. G., p. 255. The only good Attic instance of καί γε with an intervening word is to be found in Lysias, in Theomn., ii., 7, although not a strict parallel to the passage before us, Simcox, Language of the N. T., p. 168.

[123] R(omana), in Blass, a first rough copy of St. Luke.

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