Acts 5:33

διεπρίοντο : lit [184], were sawn asunder (in heart), dissecabantur, Vulgate (cf. use of findo in Persius and Plautus), cf. Acts 7:54 (Luke 2:35), Euseb., H. E., v., i., 6 (see Grimm, sub v.). The word is used in its literal sense in Aristoph., Equites, 768, Plato, Conv., p. 193 a, and once in the LXX, 1 Chronicles 20:3. The rendering “sawed their teeth” would certainly require τοὺς ὀδόντας as in other cases where the verb (and the simple verb also) has any such meaning. Dr. Kennedy, Sources of N. T. Greek, pp. 72, 73, also refers to its use in the comic poet Eubulus (Meineke), 3, 255, and classes it among the words (colloquial) common to the comic poets (including Aristophanes) and the N.T. Here we have not the pricking of the heart, Acts 2:37, which led to contrition and repentance, but the painful indignation and envy which found vent in seeking to rid themselves of the disciples as they had done of their Master. ἀνελεῖν : the verb is found no less than nineteen times in Acts, twice in St. Luke's Gospel, and only two or three times in the rest of the N.T., once in Matthew 2:16; Hebrews 10:9 (2 Thessalonians 2:8); often used as here in LXX and classical Greek; it is therefore not one of those words which can be regarded as distinctly medical terms, characteristic of St. Luke (so Hobart and Zahn), although it is much used in medical writers. The noun ἀναίρεσις, Acts 8:1, is only found in St. Luke, and is also frequent in medical writers, Hobart, Medical Language of St. Luke, pp. 209, 210; but this word is also used in LXX of a violent death or destruction, cf. Numbers 11:15, Jdt 15:4, 2Ma 5:13. At the same time it is interesting to note that ἐπιχειρεῖν, another medical word characteristic of St. Luke, and used by him in the sense of attempting, trying, is found with ἀνελεῖν in Acts 9:29, cf. Zahn, Einleitung, ii., p. 384, with which Hobart compares ὁ μὲν γὰρ ἰατρὸς ἀνελεῖν ἐπιχειρεῖ τὸ νόσημα (Galen), see in loco.

[184] literal, literally.