_is a reference in the words to a common
meal ofthe Lord with His disciples already mentioned in ver. 4, and after this final meal the question of ver. 6 is asked on the way to Bethany (Luke xxiv. 50). The words of μὲν οὖν συνελθ. are referred by Felten to the final meeting which formed the conclusion of the constant intercourse of ver. 3, a meeting thus specially empha- sised, although in reality only one out of many, and the question which follows in νετ, 6 was asked, as Felten also supposes
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καὶ ἔσεσθέ µοι μάρτυρες ἔν τε ἹἹερουσαλὴμ καὶ ἐν πάσῃ TH lovdaig καὶ Zapapeta! καὶ ἕως ἐσχάτου τῆς γῆς.) 0. Καὶ ταῦτα εἰπών,
1 Σαµαρεια, but ΦΑΓΕ, Σαμαρια (but Blass in B, -ειᾳ); so Tisch., W.H. although -εια is given as alternative; see also Winer-Schmiedel, p. 45.
(see too Rendall on wv. 7 and 8), on the way to Bethany. But there is no need to suppose that this was the case (as Jiaingst so far correctly objects against Holtzmann), and whilst we may take συνελθ. as referring to the final meeting before the Ascension, we may place that meeting not in Jerusalem but on the Mount of Olives. Blass sees in the word συνελθ. an assembly of all the Apostles, cf. νετ. 13 and 1 Cor. xv. 7, and adds: “ Aliunde supplendus locus ubi hoc fac- tum, ver. 12, Luke xxiv. 50”.—émnpo- των: imperfect, denoting that the act of questioning is always imperfect until an answer is given (Blass, cf. iil. 3), and here perhaps indicating that the same question was put by one inquirer after another (see on the force of the tense, as noted here and elsewhere by Blass, Hermathena, xxi., pp. 228, 229).—ei: this use of εἰ in direct questions is frequent in Luke, Blass, Grammatik des N. G., p. 254; cf. vii. 1, xix. 2 (in Vulgate si); it is adopted in the LXX, and a parallel may also be found
in the interrogative [J] in Hebrew (so
Blass and Viteau).—év τῷ χρόνῳ τούτῳ: such a promise as that made in ver. 5, the fulfilment of which, according to Joel ii. 28, would mark the salvation of Messianic times, might lead the disciples to ask about the restoration of the king- dom to Israel which the same prophet had foretold, to be realised by the annihilation of the enemies of God and victory and happiness for the good. As in the days of old the yoke of Pharaoh had been broken and Israel redeemed from captivity, so would the Messiah accomplish the final redemption, cf. Luke xxiv. 21, and set up again, after the destruction of the world-powers, the kingdom in Jerusalem ; Weber, Fiidische Theologie, pp. 360, 361 (1897). No doubt the thoughts of the disciples still moved within the narrow circle of Jewish national hopes: ‘‘totidem in hac interrogatione sunt errores quot verba,” writes Calvin. But still we must remember that with these thoughts of the redemption of Israel there mingled higher thoughts of the need of repentance and righteousness for the Messianic king- dom (Psalms of Solomon, xvii., xviii. ; ed. Ryle and James, p. lvii.), and that the
disciples may well have shared, even if impertectly, in the hopes of a Zacharias or a Simeon. Dr. Edersheim notes “with what wonderful sobriety” the disciples put this question to our Lord (ubi supra, i., p. 79); at the same time the question before us is plainly too primi- tive in character to have been invented by a later generation (McGiffert, Apostolic Age, p. 41).--ἀποκαθιστάνεις: ἄποκαθισ- τάνω, a form of ἀποκαθίστηµι which is found in classical Greek and is used of the restoration of dominion as here in 1 Macc. xv. 3; see also below on iii. 21 and Malachi LXX iv. 5. On the form of the verb see W.H., ii., 162, and on its force see further Dalman, uw. s., p. 1Ο0. *‘Dost thou at this time restore . . .?” R.V.; the present tense marking their ex- pectation that the kingdom, as they con- ceived it, would immediately appear—an expectation enhanced by the promise of the previous verse, in which they saw the foretaste of the Messianic kingdom.