Acts 28:3

συστρέψαντος : here only in Acts, but cf. Acts 11:27; Acts 16:39, in [425] text; = exemplum αὐτουργίας, Bengel. Cf. Matthew 17:22, W.H [426], R.V. margin; of collecting men, 2Ma 14:30. φρυγάνων : brushwood, copse; the furze still growing near St. Paul's Bay would well afford material for a fire (Lewin), and it may be quite true that wood is found nowhere else but in a place at a distance from the Bay; in classical Greek used in plural for dry sticks, especially firewood; here only in N.T., but several times in LXX, for straw, stubble, and bramble. τι before πλῆθος, see critical note: implying as much as he could carry, Weiss; πλ. used elsewhere of persons. ἔχιδνα : the objection that no poisonous serpents are found to-day in Malta, like that based on the absence of wood in Acts 28:2, may well be dismissed as “too trivial to deserve notice; such changes are natural and probable in a small island, populous and long civilised,” Ramsay, St. Paul, p. 343, Breusing, p. 191, Vars, p. 243; so too J. Smith, p. 151, 4th edition, refers to the gradual disappearance of the viper in Arran as the island became more frequented, and cf. Hackett's note for similar proof. Mr. Lewin, as late as 1853, believed that he saw a viper near St. Paul's Bay, St. Paul, ii. 200. ἐκ : “out of,” but if ἀπό “by reason of,” R.V. margin, “from the heat,” the viper numbed by the cold felt the sudden heat, and was restored to activity, cf. on its habits (Hackett), ἀπό “in causæ significatu sæpe apud Græcos,” Grotius, Bengel. cf. Acts 20:9, and Luke 21:26. ἐξελθοῦσα, see critical note. διεξ. supported by Meyer and Alford, as if the serpent glided out through the sticks. θέρμης : only in Luke in N.T., but in classics and in LXX, Job 6:17; Psalms 18 (19):6, Ecclesiastes 4:11, Sir 38:28; often used in medical writers instead of θερμότης (Hobart), but the latter is also used in Hipp. καθῆψε : only here in N.T., but frequent in classical Greek, and usually in middle, although not found in LXX, cf. however Symm., καθάπτεσθαι, Cant. i. 6, cf. Epict., Diss., iii., 20, 10, i.e., τοῦ τραχήλου : (Grimm): Blass, Page, Felten render “bit,” momordit. So Nösgen and Zöckler, who think that this is evidently meant from the context, although not necessarily contained in the verb itself; Dioscorides used it of poisonous matter introduced into the body (Hobart, p. 288). Blass thus expresses the force of the aorist, “momento temporis hoc factum est, priusquam. manum retraxisset”.

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

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