Acts 8:23

εἰς γὰρ χολὴν : The passages in LXX generally referred to as containing somewhat similar phraseology are Deuteronomy 29:18; Deuteronomy 32:32; Lamentations 3:15. But the word χολή is found in LXX several times, and not always as the equivalent of the same Hebrew. In Deuteronomy 29:18; Deuteronomy 32:32; Psalms 69:21; Jeremiah 8:14; Jeremiah 9:15; Lamentations 3:19, it is used to translate ראֹשׁ (רוֹשׁ, Deuteronomy 32:32), a poisonous plant of intense bitterness and of quick growth (coupled with wormwood, cf. Deuteronomy 29:18; Lamentations 3:19; Jeremiah 9:15). In Job 16:14 (where, however, AS 2 read ζωήν for χολήν) it is used to translate מְרֵרָה, bile, gall in Acts 20:14 of the same book it is the equivalent of מְרֹרָה in the sense of the gall of vipers, i.e., the poison of vipers, which the ancients supposed to lie in the gall. In Proverbs 5:4 and Lamentations 3:15 it is the rendering of לַעֲנָה, wormwood; and in the former passage we have πικρότερον χολῆς. If we take the most usual signification of χολή in the LXX, viz., that of the gall plant (see R.V., margin, in loco, gall, or a gall root), the thought of bitterness would naturally be associated with it (in the passage which presents the closest parallel to the verse before us, Deuteronomy 29:18, ἐν χολῇ καὶ πικρίᾳ, πικρία is a translation of the Hebrew word for wormwood); ἐν χολῇ πικρίας might therefore denote the intefnse malignity which filled the heart ο Simon. (On the word χολή its sense here, and in Matthew 27:34, see Meyer-Weiss, Matth., p. 546.) The preposition εἰς is generally taken as = ἐν in this passage; but Rendall suggests that here, as is sometimes elsewhere, it = ὡς, and he therefore renders: “I see that thou art as gall of bitterness,” denoting the evil function which Simon would fulfil in the Church if he continued what he was. Westcott's note on Hebrews 12:15 should also be consulted. σύνδεσμον ἀδικίας : R.V. translates “thou art … in the bond of iniquity”. But if the passage means that Simon “will become … a bond of iniquity,” R.V., margin, or that he is now as a bond of iniquity (Rendall), the expression denotes, not that Simon is bound, but that he binds others in iniquity. Blass refers to Isaiah 58:6, where a similar phrase occurs, σύνδ. ἀδικ., and explains: “improbitate quasi vinctus es”; so Grimm, while pointing out that the phrase in Isaiah 58:6 is used in a different sense from here, explains “vinculum improbitatis, i.e., quod ab improbitate nectitur ad constringendos animos”. Others again take the expression to denote a bundle, fasciculus (Wetstein) (cf. Hdian., iv., 12, 11), Simon being regarded “quasi ex improbitate concretum,” cf. especially Cicero, in Pison., ix., 21; but such a rendering is rejected by Grimm, as no examples can be adduced of this tropical use of the noun, and by Wendt, on the ground that ἀδικία is not in the plural, but in the singular. Combinations with ἀδικία are characteristic of St. Luke; cf. Luke 13:27; Luke 16:8-9; Luke 18:6; cf. Acts 1:18; the word only occurs once elsewhere in the Gospels, John 7:18; Friedrich, Das Lucasevangelium, p. 23.