Acts 8:3

ἐλυμαίνετο : deponent verb, used in classical Greek of personal outrage (λύμη), of scourging and torturing, of outraging the dead, of the ruin and devastation caused by an army (Wetstein). In the LXX it is found several times, cf. especially Psalms 79 (80):13, of a wild boar ravaging a vineyard, and cf. also Sir 28:23. As the word is used only by St. Luke it is possible that it may have been suggested by its frequent employment in medical language, where it is employed not only of injury by wrong treatment, but also of the ravages of disease, Hobart, Medical Language, pp. 211, 212. R.V. renders “laid waste,” A.V. (so Tyndale) “made havoc of,” but the revisers have rendered πορθέω by the latter, cf. Acts 9:21; Galatians 1:3. St. Paul's description of himself as ὑβριστής, 1 Timothy 1:13, may well refer to the infliction of personal insults and injuries, as expressed here by λυμαίνομαι (cf. Paley, Horæ Paulinæ, xi., 5). τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, i.e., the Church just mentioned at Jerusalem Saul's further persecution, even to Damascus, probably came later (Hort, Ecclesia, p. 53). κατὰ τοὺς οἴκους εἰσπορ.: the expression may denote “entering into every house,” R. and A.V., or perhaps, more specifically, the houses known as places of Christian assembly, the ἐκκλησίαι κατʼ οἶκον, see on Acts 2:46. In any case the words, as also those which follow, show the thoroughness and relentlessness of Saul's persecuting zeal. σύρων : haling, i.e., hauling, dragging (schlappend), cf. James 2:6. The word is used by St. Luke three times in Acts (only twice elsewhere in N.T.), and he alone uses κατασύρω, Luke 12:58, in the same sense as the single verb (where St. Matthew has παραδῷ). For its employment in the Comic Poets see Kennedy, Sources of N. T. Greek, p. 76, and also Arrian, Epict., i. 29, 22, and other instances in Wetstein; cf. LXX, 2 Samuel 17:13 4Ma 6:1, ἔσυραν ἐπὶ τὰ βασανιστήρια τὸν Ἐλ. γυναῖκας : repeated also in Acts 9:2, and Acts 22:4, as indicating the relentless nature of the persecution. Some of the devout and ministering women may well have been included, Luke 8:2-3; Acts 1:14.