Acts 28:6

οἱ δέ …: Paul shook off the viper the natives looked for a fatal result. They knew the deadly nature of the bite, and their subsequent conduct shows that they regarded it as nothing short of miraculous that Paul escaped. So St. Luke evidently wishes to describe the action, see on μέν οὖν, Acts 28:5, and δέ, Rendall, Acts, p. 161, Appendix. προσεδόκων, see below. πίμπρασθαι, from the form πίμπρημι, present infinitive passive, see critical note, and Winer-Schmiedel, p. 122; cf. in LXX, Numbers 5:21-22; Numbers 5:27, πρήθειν, H. and R., of parts of the body becoming swollen. In classical Greek πίμπρασθαι means “to take fire,” and πρήθειν “to cause to swell,” and those two ideas are combined, as in the word πρηστήρ; “a venomous snake, the bite of which caused both inflammation and swelling” (Page, in loco), cf. Lucan, ix. 790. In the N.T. the verb is peculiar to St. Luke, and it is the usual medical word for inflammation (Hobart, Zahn) in Hipp., Aret., Galen. καταπίπτειν : only in Luke in N.T., cf. Luke 8:6; Acts 26:14, it was used by medical writers of persons falling down suddenly from wounds, or in epileptic fits; Hipp., Galen (Hobart, Zahn), cf. the asp-bitten Charmian in Ant. and Cleo. (Shakespeare), Acts 5, Scene 2. ἄφνω : only in Acts 2:2; Acts 16:26. προσδ.… ἄτοπον : the two words are described by Hobart as exactly those which a medical man would use (so too Zahn), and he gives two instances of the latter word from Galen, in speaking of the bite of a rabid dog, or of poison, p. 289. The word is used elsewhere in N.T. of something morally amiss; cf. Luke 23:41; Acts 25:5; 2 Thessalonians 3:2, but here evidently of something amiss physically. In R.V. it is rendered in each passage “amiss”. The word in N.T. is confined to Luke and Paul, but it is found several times in LXX in an ethical sense (as in N.T., except in loco), cf. Job 4:8; Job 11:11; Job 27:6; Job 34:12; Job 35:13, Prov. 24:55 (Proverbs 30:20), cf. 2Ma 14:23; so too in Thucydides, Josephus, Plutarch, etc.; but it is used of any harm happening to a person as here, cf. Jos., Ant., viii., 14, 4; xi., 5, 2; Herodian, iv., 11. προσδοκία, peculiar to St. Luke in N.T.; cf. Luke 21:26; Acts 12:11, and προσδοκάω, in Luke six times, in Acts five, was, no doubt, frequently used in medical language (Hobart, Zahn) for the expectation of the result of a disease or paroxysm “when they were long in expectation,” R.V.), but in Jos., Ant., viii., 14, 4, we have καὶ μηδὲν τῶν ἀτόπων προσδοκᾷν, and in Herodian, iv., 11, μηδὲν ἄτοπον προσδοκοῦντες · εἰς αὐτὸν γιν., cf. Luke 4:23 (Klostermann, Weiss). μεταβαλλόμενοι, so frequently in classics without τὴν γνώμην, cf. Jos., B. J., v., 9, 3. θεὸν αὐτὸν εἶναι : it is perhaps fanciful to suppose with Grotius and Wetstein that they compared him to the infant Hercules, or to Æsculapius represented with the serpent, but the latter is undoubtedly right in adding, “eleganter autem hic describitur vulgi inconstantia”; we naturally compare with Chrysostom the startling change in the people of Lystra, Acts 14:11; Acts 14:19, “Aut latro inquiunt aut deus … datur tertium: homo Dei” (Bengel).