Acts 3:8

ἐξαλλόμενος : not leaping out of his couch (as has sometimes been supposed), of which there is no mention, but leaping up for joy (cf. Isaiah 55:12; Joel 2:5) (on the spelling with one λ see Blass, p. 51); cf. also Isaiah 35:6. This seems more natural than to suppose that he leaped because he was incredulous, or because he did not know how to walk, or to avoid the suspicion of hypocrisy (Chrys., Hom., viii., so too Oecumenius). St. Chrysostom remarks that it was no less than if they saw Christ risen from the dead to hear Peter saying: “In the name,” etc., and if Christ is not raised, how account for it, he asks, that those who fled whilst He was alive, now dared a thousand perils for Him when dead? ἔστη καὶ περιεπάτει : “he stood and began to walk” R.V., thus marking the difference between the aorist and the imperfect. Such vivid details may have been derived from St. Peter himself, and they are given here with a vividness characteristic of St. Mark's Gospel, of which St. Peter may reasonably be regarded as the main source. If St. Luke did not derive the narrative directly from St. Peter, he may easily have done so from the same Evangelist, John Mark, see on chap. 12, and Scharfe, Die petrinische Strömung der N. T. Literatur, pp. 59, 60 (1893). αἰνῶν τὸν θεόν : commentators from the days of St. Chrysostom have noted that by no act or in no place could the man have shown his gratitude more appropriately; characteristic of St. Luke, to note not only fear, but the ascription of praise to God as the result of miraculous deeds; cf., e.g., Luke 19:37; Luke 24:53; Acts 3:9; Acts 4:21; Acts 11:18, and other instances in Friedrich (Das Lucasevangelium, pp. 77, 78). On the word see further, p. 97. Spitta regards Acts 3:8 as modelled after Acts 14:10, a passage attributed by him to his inferior source B. But on the other hand both Feine and Jüngst regard the first part of Acts 3:8 as belonging to the original source.