Acts 3:23

And it shall come to pass, that every soul,.... Every person, man or woman:

which will not hear that prophet; neither believe what he says, nor do what he commands; or as it is in Deuteronomy 18:19 "will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name": for he that hears not him, hearkens not to God, in whose name he speaks, and whose word he delivers,

shall be destroyed from among the people; in the Hebrew text it is, "I will require it of him"; the Hebrew word, מעמו, there used, by having different points, may be rendered "of him", or "from his people", which seems to be the reason of this difference: and requiring often intends punishment, or a cutting off; or as Aben Ezra explains it here,

"death by the hand of heaven;''

that is, immediate destruction from God; and so Maimonides says k, he that transgresses the words of that prophet, is guilty of death by the hand of heaven; and which was remarkably fulfilled in the Jewish nation, for their rejection of Jesus as the true Messiah, and that prophet.

k Yesod Hattora, c. 9. sect. 4.