Acts 3:25

ὑμεῖς, as in Acts 3:26, emphatic, “obligat auditores” Bengel, cf. Acts 2:39; Romans 9:4; Romans 15:8; their preference and destiny ought to make them more sensible of their duty in the reception of the Messiah; υἱοί, “sons” as in Matthew 8:12, R.V. The rendering “disciples” (Matthew 12:2), even if υἱοί could be so rendered with προφητῶν (J. Lightfoot, Kuinoel), could not be applied to τῆς διαθήκης. The expression is Hebraistic, see Grimm-Thayer, sub υἱός, 2, and on many similar expressions Deissmann, Bibelstudicn, p. 163 ff. διαθ. διέθετο, cf. Hebrews 8:10; Hebrews 10:16; Genesis 15:18; Malachi 1:11; Malachi 1:11, for a similar construction in LXX in more than seventy places, so also frequently in classical writers. διαθήκης : on the word, see below, Acts 7:8. ἐν τῷ σπέρματί σου, cf. Genesis 22:18; Genesis 12:3. For the application of the prophecy to the Messiah as the seed of Abraham by the Rabbinical writers, see Wetstein on Galatians 3:16 (and Edersheim, Jesus the Messiah, ii., p. 712); so by St. Luke, although the words of the prophecy were first uttered in a collective sense. πατριαὶ : “families,” R.V., Luke 2:4; Ephesians 3:15; “kindreds,” A.V., is the rendering of other words, Acts 4:5; Acts 7:3. πατριά is found in LXX (and in Herodotus); in Genesis 12:3 φυλαί is used, and in Acts 18:18 ἔθνη, but in Psalms 22:27 and in 1 Chronicles 16:28 we have the phrase αἱ πατριαὶ τῶν ἐθνῶν (but see Nösgen, in loco). In this quotation, cf. Galatians 3:8; Galatians 3:16, and in the πρῶτον of the next verse we may see a striking illustration of the unity of Apostolic preaching, and the recognition of God's purpose by St. Peter and St. Paul alike (Romans 1:16; Romans 2:9-10). ἐνευλογηθήσονται : ἐν of the instrument as often: the verb is not used in classical writers, but Blass gives several instances of verbs similarly compounded with ἐν, cf. ἐνευδαιμονεῖν, ἐνευδοκιμεῖν. The compound verb is found several times in LXX.