Acts 3:23

Acts 3:23. And it shall come to pass (ἔσται δέ). These words do not occur in the passage quoted by St. Peter.

Every soul which will not hear that prophet. The apostle had been excusing the people who had crucified the Lord, seeing they had done it ignorantly. Now, in the words of the Pentateuch prophecy, he announces the fate of every soul which, through hardness of heart, self-will, hatred of goodness and purity, refuses to listen to the voice of Jesus the Messiah.

Shall he destroyed from among the people. The words of Deuteronomy, in the passage quoted from the LXX., are ἐγὼ ἐκδικήσω ἐξ αὐτοῦ, ‘I will require it of him' (E. V.), or better translated, ‘I will exact vengeance from him.' St. Peter here has substituted an expression which constantly occurs in the Pentateuch; and as Hackett remarks, the only difference is, while the original words of the passage in Deuteronomy affirm the purpose of God to exact vengeance, the well-known formula employed by the apostle defines the nature of the punishment reserved for that stubborn soul which refuses to hear the Lord Jesus. This punishment is exclusion from the kingdom of God, from life in its highest sense; and this exclusion from life carries with it the sentence of eternal death (see also De Wette and Meyer).