Acts 8:26

ἄγγελος : on the frequency of angelic appearances, another characteristic of St. Luke, see Friedrich, Das Lucasevangelium, pp. 45 and 52 (so Zeller, Acts, ii., 224, E.T.), cf. Luke 2:9 and Acts 12:7; Luke 1:38 and Acts 10:7; Luke 24:4 and Acts 1:10; Acts 10:30. There can be no doubt, as Wendt points out, that St. Luke means that the communication was made to Philip by an angel, and that therefore all attempts to explain his words as meaning that Philip felt a sudden inward impulse, or that he had a vision in a dream, are unsatisfactory. ἀνάστηθι, as Wendt remarks, does not support the latter supposition, cf. Acts 5:17, and its frequent use in Acts and in O.T. see below. δὲ may be taken as above, see Acts 8:25, or as simply marking the return of the narrative from the chief Apostles to the history of Philip. As in Acts 8:29; Acts 8:39, πνεῦμα and not ἄγγελος occurs; the alteration has been attributed to a reviser, but even Spitta, Apostelgeschichte, p. 153, can find no reason for this, and sees in the use of πνεῦμα and ἄγγελος here nothing more strange than their close collocation Matthew 4:1; Matthew 4:11. ἀνάστηθι καὶ πορεύου, words often similarly joined together in LXX. κατὰ μεσημβρίαν : towards the south, i.e., he was to proceed “with his face to the south,” cf. Acts 27:12 (Page). ἐπὶ τὴν ὁδὸν (not πρός), on, i.e., along the road (not “unto,” A.V.). R.V. margin renders κατὰ μεσ. “at noon”; so Rendall, cf. Acts 22:6, as we have κατά not πρός; so Nestle, Studien und Kritiken, p. 335 (l892) (see Felten's note, Apostelgeschichte, p. 177; but as he points out, the heat of the day at twelve o'clock would not be a likely time for travelling, see also Belser, Beiträge, p. 52, as against Nestle). Wendt, edition 1899, p. 177, gives in his adhesion to Nestle's view on the ground that in LXX, cf. Genesis 18:1, etc., the word μεσημβρ. is always so used, and because the time of the day for the meeting was an important factor, whilst there would be no need to mention the direction, when the town was definitely named (see also O. Holtzmann, Neutest. Zeitgeschichte, p. 88). αὕτη ἐστὶν ἔρημος : opinion is still divided as to whether the adjective is to be referred to the town or the road. Amongst recent writers, Wendt, edition 1899, p. 178; Zahn, Einleitung in das N. T., ii., 438 (1899); Belser, Rendall, O. Holtzmann, u. s., p. 88, Knabenbauer (so too Edersheim, Jewish Social Life, p. 79; Conder in B.D. 2 “Gaza,” and Grimm-Thayer) may be added to the large number who see a reference to the route (in Schürer, Jewish People, div. ii., vol. i., p. 71, E.T., it is stated that this view is the more probable). But, on the other hand, some of the older commentators (Calvin, Grotius, etc.) take the former view, and they have recently received a strong supporter in Prof. G. A. Smith, Historical Geog. of the Holy Land, pp. 186 188. O. Holtzmann, although referring αὕτη to ὁδός, points out that both Strabo, xvi., 2, 30, and the Anonymous Geographical Fragment (Geogr. Græc. Minores, Hudson, iv., p. 39) designate Gaza as ἔρημος. Dr. Smith strengthens these references, not only by Jos., Ant., xiv., 4, 4, and Diodorus Siculus, xix., 80, but by maintaining that the New Gaza mentioned in the Anonymous Fragment was on the coast, and that if so, it lay off the road to Egypt, which still passed by the desert Gaza; the latter place need not have been absolutely deserted in Philip's time; its site and the vicinity of the great road would soon attract people back, but it was not unlikely that the name Ἔρημος might still stick to it (see also Acts 8:36 below). If we take the adjective as referring to the road, its exact force is still doubtful; does it refer to one route, specially lonely, as distinguished from others, or to the ordinary aspect of a route leading through waste places, or to the fact that at the hour mentioned, noon-day (see above), it would be deserted? Wendt confesses himself unable to decide, and perhaps he goes as far as one can expect to go in adding that at least this characterisation of the route so far prepares us for the sequel, in that it explains the fact that the eunuch would read aloud, and that Philip could converse with him uninterruptedly. Hackett and others regard the words before us as a parenthetical remark by St. Luke himself to acquaint the reader with the region of this memorable occurrence, and αὕτη is used in a somewhat similar explanatory way in 2 Chronicles 5:2, LXX, but this does not enable us to decide as to whether the explanation is St. Luke's or the angel's. Hilgenfeld and Schmiedel dismiss the words as an explanatory gloss. The argument sometimes drawn for the late date of Acts by referring ἔρημος to the supposed demolition of Gaza in A.D. 66 cannot be maintained, since this destruction so called was evidently very partial, see G. A. Smith, u. s., and so Schürer, u. s.