Acts 2:23

τοῦτον, emphatic, ἔκδοτον delivered up, by Judas, not by God; only here in the N.T., but see instances from Josephus, also from classical Greek, in Wetstein. In Dan., Theod., Bel and the Dragon Acts 2:22. ὡρισμένῃ βουλῇ : both favourite words of St. Luke: ὡρις. used by him five times in the Acts 10:42; Acts 11:29; Acts 17:26; Acts 17:31; once by St. Paul, Romans 1:4; once in Hebrews, Hebrews 4:7, and only in St. Luke amongst the Evangelists, Luke 22:22, where our Lord Himself speaks of the events of His betrayal by the same word, κατὰ τὸ ὡρισμένον (cf. Acts 24:26). βουλῇ : Wendt compares the Homeric Διὸς δʼ ἐτελείετο βουλή. The phrase βουλή τοῦ Θ. is used only by St. Luke; once in his Gospel, Acts 7:30, and three times in Acts 13:36; Acts 20:27 (whilst βουλή is used twice in the Gospel, eight times in the Acts, and only three times elsewhere in the N.T., 1 Corinthians 4:5; Ephesians 1:2; Hebrews 6:17), but cf. Wis 6:4; Wis 9:13, and often ἡ βουλή Κυρίου in LXX. προγνώσει : the word is only found again in 1 Peter 1:2. and its occurrence in that place, and the thoughts which it expresses, may be classed amongst the points of contact between Acts and 1 Peter (see at end of chap. 3). In the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, which at one time seemed to Peter impossible, cf. Matthew 16:22, he now sees the full accomplishment of God's counsel, cf. Acts 3:20, and 1 Peter 1:20 (Nösgen, Apostelgeschichte, p. 53, and also 48 52). In this spiritual insight now imparted to the Apostle we see a further proof of the illuminating power of the Holy Ghost, the gift of Pentecost, which he himself so emphatically acknowledges in his first epistle (Acts 1:1-12). διὰ χειρῶν, best explained as a Hebraism. Cf. for the frequent use of this Hebraistic expression, Blass, Grammatik des N. G., pp. 126, 127; and Simcox, Language of the N. T., p. 141. In the LXX, cf. 2 Kings 14:27 1 Chronicles 11:3; 1 Chronicles 29:5. St. Luke is very fond of these paraphrases with πρόσωπον and χείρ see Friedrich, Das Lukasevangelium, pp. 8, 9, and Lekebusch, Apostelgeschichte, p. 77; cf. Acts 5:12; Acts 7:25; Acts 11:30; Acts 14:3; Acts 15:23; Acts 19:11, so ἐν χειρί, εἰς χεῖρας. ἀνόμων : “lawless,” R.V., generally taken to refer to the Roman soldiers who crucified our Lord, i.e., Gentiles without law, as in 1 Corinthians 9:21; Romans 2:14. In Wis 17:2 the same word is used of the Egyptians who thought to oppress the holy nation they are described as ἄνομοι. προσπήξαντες, sc., τῷ σταυρῷ : a graphic word used only here, with which we may compare the vivid description also by St. Peter in Acts 5:29-32; Acts 10:39, cf. 1 Peter 2:24 the language of one who could justly claim to be a witness of the sufferings of Christ, 1 Peter 5:1. The word is not found in LXX, cf. Dio Cassius. ἀνείλατε : an Alexandrian form, see for similar instances, Kennedy, Sources of N. T. Greek, pp. 159, 160. The verb is a favourite with St. Luke, nineteen times in Acts, twice in the Gospel, and only once elsewhere in the Evangelists, viz., Matthew 2:16, and the noun ἀναίρεσις is only found in Acts 8:10 (Acts 22:20), cf. its similar use in classical Greek and in the LXX. The fact that St. Peter thus describes the Jewish people as the actual murderers of Jesus is not a proof that in such language we have an instance of anti-Judaism quite inconsistent with the historical truth of the speech (Baur, Renan, Overbeck), but the Apostle sees vividly before his eyes essentially the same crowd at the Feast as had demanded the Cross of Jesus before the judgment-seat of Pilate, Nösgen, Apostelgeschichte, p. 103. ὃν ὁ Θεὸς ἀνέστησε, “est hoc summum orationis,” Blass, cf. Acts 5:32, and Acts 1:22.

Acts 2:24. λύσας τὰς ὠδῖνας τοῦ θαν.: R.V. “pangs” instead of “pains” (all previous versions) approaches nearer to the literal form of the word “birth-pangs,” the resurrection of Christ being conceived of as a birth out of death, as the Fathers interpreted the passage. The phrase is found in the Psalms, LXX Psalms 17:4; Psalms 114:3, but it is most probable that the LXX has here mistaken the force of the Hebrew חבל which might mean “birth-pangs,” or the cords of a hunter catching his prey. In the Hebrew version the parallelism, such a favourite figure in Hebrew poetry, decides in favour of the latter meaning, as in R.V. Psalms 18:4-5 (LXX 18), Sheol and Death are personified as hunters lying in wait for their prey with nooses and nets (Kirkpatrick, Psalms, in loco, the word מוֹקְשֵׁי meaning snares by which birds or beasts are taken (Amos 3:5)). In the previous verse the parallelism is also maintained if we read “the waves of death” (cf. 2 Samuel 22:5) “compassed me, the floods of ungodliness made me afraid”. It is tempting to account for the reading ὠδῖνας by supposing that St. Luke had before him a source for St. Peter's speech, and that he had given a mistaken rendering of the word חבל. But it would certainly seem that λύσας and κρατεῖσθαι are far more applicable to the idea of the hunter's cords, in which the Christ could not be bound, since He was Himself the Life. A similar mistake in connection with the same Hebrew word חבל may possibly occur in 1 Thessalonians 5:3 and Luke 21:34. There is no occasion to find in the word any reference to the death-pains of Christ (so Grotius, Bengel), or to render ὠδῖνες pains and snares (Olshausen, Nösgen), and it is somewhat fanciful to explain with St. Chrysostom (so Theophylact and Oecumenius) ὁ θάνατος ὤδινε κατέχων αὐτὸν καὶ τὰ δεινὰ ἔπασχε. καθότι : only found in St. Luke, in Gospel twice, and in Acts four times (Friedrich); generally in classical Greek καθʼ ὅ τι (cf. Tob 1:12; Tob 13:4). οὐκ ἦν δυνατὸν … γὰρ : the words primarily refer to the proof which St. Peter was about to adduce from prophecy, and the Scripture could not be broken. But whilst Baur sees in such an expression, as also in Acts 3:15, a transition to Johannine conceptions of the Person of Jesus, every Christian gladly recognises in the words the moral impossibility that the Life could be holden by Death. On the impersonal construction, see Viteau, Le Grec du N. T., p. 151 (1893). κρατεῖσθαι … ὑπʼ, cf. Luke 24:16 (John 20:23), only in these passages in passive voice in N.T., but cf. for similar use of the passive voice, Malachi 2:9; Malachi 2:9, and so in Dem. Schmid compares this verse where the internal necessity of Christ's resurrection is thus stated with 1 Peter 3:18, showing that the πνεῦμα in Him possessed this power of life (Biblische Theologie des N. T., p. 402).