Ver. 12. This address of St. Peter divides itself into two parts, 12-16, 17-26, and although it covers much of the same ground as in chap. Π., there is no need to regard it with Overbeck and Holtz- mann as unhistorical: see Blass, in loco, and Feine; the latter points out that St. Peter would naturally, as in chap. iii., take the incident before him as his text, place it in its right light, and draw from it an appeal to repentance and conver- sion. But whilst we may grant the common and identical aim of the two discourses, to proclaim the Messiahship of Jesus before the Jews, none can fail to see that in chap. ili. the Messianic idea becomes richer and fuller. Jesus is the prophet greater than Moses: Jesus is the fulfilment of the Abrahamic covenant, through which the blessing of Abraham is to extend to all the earth, Matt. viii. rr. And more than this: St. Peter has learnt to see in the despised Nazarene not only the suffering servant of Jehovah (mais), but in the servant the King, and in the seed of David the Prince of Life. And in the light of that revela- tion the future opens out more clearly before him, and he becomes the first prophet in the Messianic age—the spirit-
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13.1 6 Θεὸς ᾽Αβραὰμ καὶ ᾿Ισαὰκ καὶ ‘lakdB, 6 Θεὸς τῶν πατέρων
Gv, ἐδόξασε τὸν παῖδα αὑτοῦ ᾽ Gv: ὃν ὑμεῖς παρεδώκατε. καὶ ἡμῶν, ἐδό ὸ δ τοῦ ᾿Ιησοῦν : dv ὑμεῖς 3 δώκατε,
1 ὁ ©. Αβρ. και Io. και lax. BEP 61, Sah., Syr. (Pesh. Harcl.); so W.H., Weiss, R.V., T.R.; Wendt, who explains the reading in Tisch., Hilg. introducing (ο) Θεος (SACD) before Ισ. and before lax. as out of LXX, Exod. iii. 6 (cf. Matt. xxii. 32).
2 gwapedwxate; D adds εις κρισιν, 5ο Hilg.; E evs κριτηριον (cf. also Flor., Par.!}, Syr. Harcl. mg., Iren., cf. Luke xxiv. 30; see also Chase, in loco).
ual presence which the believers now enjoyed, and by which those mighty deeds-are wrought, is only a foretaste of a more visible and glorious Presence, when the Messiah should return in His glory; and for that return repentance and remission of sins must prepare the way (see Briggs, Messiah of the Apostles, pp. 31, 32). On St. Peter’s discourses see additional note at end of chapter.— ἀπεκρίνατο: cf. Luke xiii. 14, xiv. 3, answered, 4.6.. to their looks of astonish- ment and inquiry. The middle voice as here, which would be the classical usuage, is seldom found in the Ν.Τ., but gener- ally the passive aorist, ἀπεκρίθη, and so in the LXX. “In Biblical Greek the middle voice is dying, in modern Greek it is dead,” Plummer. Thus in modern Greek, ὑποκρίνομαι in the passive=to answer, Kennedy, Sources of N. T..Greek, Ρ. 155, and Blass, Grammatik des N. G.., Ῥ. 44-- ὡς πεποιηκόσιν τοῦ περιπατεῖν: this use of the infinitive with the geni- tive of the article, instead of the simple infinitive with or without ὥστε, to express a purpose, or result as here: “ποπ de consilio sed de eventu”’ (Blass), may be illustrated from the LXX, Gen. xxxvii. 18, 1 Chron. xliv. 6, Isaiah v.6.—evoeBeta: ‘* godliness,” R.V., as always elsewhere in A.V., i.e., by our piety towards God, as always in the Bible, although εὐσέβεια may be used like the Latin pietas of piety towards parents or others, as well as of piety towards God. It is frequently used in the LXX of reverence towards God, eis, so too in Josephus, πρὸς τὸν Θεόν, cf. Prov. i. 7, xiii. 11, Isaiah xi. 2, Wisdom x. 12, and often in 4 Macc. In Trench, N. T. Synonyms, ii., p. 196, and Grimm-Thayer, sub v. Inthe N.T. the word is used, in addition to its use here, by St. Paul ten times in the Pastoral Epistles, and it is found no less than four times in 2 Peter, but nowhere else. St. Chrysostom, Hom. ix., comments: ‘“ Do you see how clear of all ambition he is, and how he repels the honour paid to him ?”’ so too Joseph: Do not interpreta- tions belong to God?