Acts 1:4

Acts 1:4. And, being assembled together with them. The translation given in the margin of the Authorised Version, ‘eating together with them,' seems the more accurate one. Modern critics are much divided on the question of the true rendering here; the authority, however, of the Greek fathers Chrysostom, Theophylact, and CEcumenius, and also Jerome among the Latins, who understand the words in the sense given in the margin of the Authorized Version, seems decisive on such a question. The sense of the passage then is: ‘And as He (Jesus) ate with them; He commanded them,' etc. No point of time specially distinguishes this meeting with the disciples when He partook of a meal with them. It was one of the ‘infallible proofs' referred to in Acts 1:3, and may have been identical with the meal by the lake which St. John tells us of (Acts 21:12-13), or with that they partook of together in Jerusalem (Luke 24:41-42); but it seems with greater probability to have been a meeting when the risen Lord and His disciples ate together, not mentioned in the Gospels.

The promise of the Father refers especially to the promises given through the Old Testament prophets to Israel, such as Isaiah 44:3; Joel 2:28-29.

Which ye have heard of me. A memory of such conversations between our Lord and His own, as St. John related in his account of the night before the crucifixion (chaps, 14, 15, 16).