Acts 2:27

In LXX and N.T. rightly εἰς ᾅδην. W.H [127]; cf. also Briggs, Messianic Prophecies, p. 24; although in T.R. as usually in Attic, εἰς ᾅδου, sc., δόμον. Blass regards as simply usurping in the common dialect the place of ἐν, but we can scarcely explain the force of the preposition here in this way. ἐγκαταλείψεις used of utter abandonment, cf. Psalms 22:1 (cf. 2 Timothy 4:10; 2 Timothy 4:16). εἰς ᾅδην : whilst it is true that the Psalmist “says nothing about what shall happen to him after death” (Perowne), he expresses his conviction that his soul would not be given up to the land of gloom and forgetfulness, the abode of the dead, dark and cheerless, with which the Psalmist cannot associate the thought of life and light (see also on Acts 2:31). οὐδὲ δώσεις : in R.V. (O.T.) the word “suffer” is retained, but in R.V. (N.T.) we find “thou wilt not give,” the Hebrew נתן being used in this sense to permit, to suffer, to let, like δίδωμι and dare, Viteau, Le Grec du N. T., p. 156 (1893). τὸν ὅσιόν σου : the Hebrew Châsîd which is thus sometimes translated in the LXX (Vulgate, Sanctus) is often rendered “thy beloved one,” and the word denotes not only one who is godly and pious, but also one who is the object of Jehovah's loving-kindness. The word might well be used of Him, Who was not only the Holy One of God, but ὁ ἀγαπητὸς υἱός, “the beloved Son”. On the word Châsîd see Kirkpatrick, Psalms, Appendix, p. 221. ἰδεῖν διαφθοράν : “corruption” or “the pit,” margin R.V. (O.T.), but in the N.T. simply “corruption” (A. and R.V.), Vulgate, corruptio. In the LXX the Hebrew שַׁחַת is often rendered διαφθορά, “corruption,” as if derived from שָׁחַת διαφθείρειν, “to corrupt”; not, however, in the sense of corruption, putridity, but of destruction. The derivation however is probably from שׁוּחַ, to sink down, hence it means a pit, and sometimes a sepulchre, a grave, Psalms 30:10; Psalms 55:24, so here “to see the grave,” i.e., to die and be buried, cf. Psalms 49:10 (see Robinson's Gesenius, p. 1053, note, twenty-sixth edition). Dr. Robertson Smith maintains that there are two Hebrew words the same in form but different in origin, one masculine = putrefaction or corruption, the other feminine = the deep or the pit. So far he agrees with the note in Gesenius, u. s., that the word διαφθορά should here be rendered by the latter, the pit, but he takes the rendering, the deep or the pit, as an epithet not of the grave but of Sheol or Hades (see Expositor, p. 354, 1876, the whole paper on “The Sixteenth Psalm,” by Dr. R. Smith, should be consulted, and p. 354 compared with the note in Gesenius), and this view certainly seems to fit in better with the parallelism.

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