Acts 5:6

ἀναστάντες, see on Acts 2:14. οἱ νεώτεροι : the fact that they are called simply νεανίσκοι in Acts 5:10 seems decisive against the view that reference is made to any definite order in the Church. Nor is it certain that we can see in the fulfilment of such duties by the νεώτεροι the beginnings of the diaconate, although on the natural distinction between πρεσβύτεροι and νεώτεροι it may well have been that official duties in the Church were afterwards based, cf. 1 Timothy 5:1; Titus 2:1-6; 1 Peter 5:5, Clem. Rom., i. 3; iii. 3; xxi. 6; Polycarp, Epist., v., 3 (cf. Luke 22:26). In comparatively early days it belonged to the duties of the deacons to provide for the burial of the strangers and the poor, but it seems hardly probable that οἱ νεώτεροι were appointed as a separate body to bury the dead, before any attempt had been made to relieve the Apostles of the more pressing duty of distributing the public funds, Acts 6:1. On the other hand it is possible that the company of public “buriers” whom the prophet saw in vision, Ezekiel 39:12-16, may have become quite customary in N.T. days. R.V. margin renders simply “the younger men”. συνέστειλαν, “wrapped him round,” R.V., probably in their own mantles (for no formal laying-out in robes can be supposed by the context), for which περιστέλλω would be the usual word, cf. Eur., Troad., 378 (see Grimm, Blass, Weiss). But Meyer on the other hand is against the parallel, and argues, following Grotius, that the word should be rendered “placed him together,” i.e., laid out or composed his limbs, so that he might be carried out more conveniently (so too Overbeck, Holtzmann, Zöckler). Vulgate, amoverunt, followed by Luther, Erasmus, Beza, cannot be said to be supported by any parallel use of the word (Par. 2 also same verb as Vulg.). The word is frequently used by medical writers in various senses, one of which, to bandage, to compress by bandaging, is that which seems to afford a possible parallel to its use here, Hobart, Medical Language, etc., pp. 37, 38. The use of the word by Josephus, Ant., xviii., 3; xix., 4, is not sufficient to justify us in taking it here to express all the preparations for burial. ἐξενέγκαντες : outside the walls of the city, the usual place for graves only prophets and kings had their graves in the city Hamburger, Real-Encyclopädie des Judentums, i., 4, 475, “Grab”; Edersheim, Jewish Social Life, p. 169, cf. the use of ἐκφέρω and ἐκκομίζω in classical Greek, Latin, efferre. ἔθαψαν : partly for sanitary reasons, partly to avoid defilement; the interval between death and burial was very brief, especially in Jerusalem (Numbers 19:11; Deuteronomy 21:23; Hamburger, u. s., i., 2, 161, “Beerdigung,” with reference to this passage, Edersheim, u. s., p. 168; for the existing custom in Jerusalem of speedy burial, see Hackett, in loco, and Schneller, Kennst du das Land? (eighth edition), p. 188).