Ver. 18. ἐπέβαλον τὰς χεῖρας: a phrase used twice in St. Luke’s Gospel, and three times in the Acts, cf. Gen.
xxi. 12. Cf. Hebrew bys aah ro, —tv τηρήσει δηµοσίᾳ, “in public ward,” R.V. Syp. used here as an adjective, only found in N.T. in Acts, in the three other passages used as an adverb, xvi. 37, Xvili. 28, xx. 20 (2 Macc. vi. 1ο, 3 Mace. ii. 2), cf. Thuc., v., 18, where τὸ δηµόσιον = the public prison. See note above on iv. 3. Hilgenfeld is so far right in pointing out that the two im- prisonments, iv. 3 and v. 18, are occa- sioned by two different causes, in the first case by the preaching of the Apostles
17—20.
Sypoota.t
149
Ig. ἄγγελος δὲ Κυρίου διὰ τῆς νυκτὸς ἤνοιξε τὰς θύρας
τῆς φυλακῆς, ἐξαγαγών τε αὐτοὺς εἶπε, 20. Πορεύεσθε, καὶ σταθέντες
1 αυτων om. NABD 15, Vulg., Syr. Pesh., Arm., Lucif., so Tisch., W.H., R.V.,
Weiss, Wendt; but retained by EP, verss., Bas., Chrys., Meyer.
At end of verse D
adds και επορευθη εις εκαστος evs Ta ιδια, so Hilg.; cf. John vii. 55 ; see Harris and Chase, who both think that the gloss comes from John, /. c., but the resemblance is not
verbal.
to the people, and in the second by the reverence which their miracles gained from the people.
Ver. 19. ἄγγελος δὲ K.: the narrative must be accepted or rejected as it stands. As Wendt, following Zeller in earlier days, candidly admits, every attempt to explain the narrative by referring the release of the prisoners to some natural event, such as an earthquake or lightning, or to some friendly disposed person, who with the assistance of the gaoler opened the prison doors, and who was mistaken by the Apostles for an angel in the dark- ness and excitement of the night, is shattered at once against the plain mean- ing of the text. Nor can it be deemed satisfactory to believe that St. Luke has unconsciously given us two narratives of the liberation of St. Peter, here and in xii, and that the former is merely an echo of the later deliverance transferred to an earlier date (Weiss, Sorof, Holtz- mann). But St. Luke had the best means of knowing accurately the events narrated in xii. from John Mark (see below on chap. xii., and Ramsay, St. Paul, etc., p- 385), Introd., p. 17, and there is no ground whatever for supposing that xii. is simply an embellished version of this former incident. Attempts have been made to show that St. Luke introduces the same doubling of narratives in his Gospel (Wendt, Holtzmann), e¢.g., the sending forth of the disciples in ix. 3 απά x. 1, but the former chapter is concerned with the mission of the Twelve, and the latter with that of the Seventy. Further objections have been made as to the use- lessness of the miracle—the disciples are found, to be imprisoned again! But not only was the miracle a source of fresh strength and faith to the disciples, but— as Hilgenfeld notes—their release can scarcely be described as purposeless, since it called forth a public transgression of the command of silenceimposed upon the two chief Apostles, iv. 17-21. Moreover, the deliverance was another indication to the Sadducees, if they would have accepted it, that it was useless for them to attempt to stay the movement. ‘* Quis ergo usus
εις τα ιδια is characteristic of St. John, but it is also found in Acts xxi. 6.
angeli?”’ asks Blass; and he answers: ‘Sed est aliquis: augetur enim aposto- lorum audacia (21), tum ira adversariorum magis accenditur ; nihilominus Deus suos perire non patitur’’, That the Sadducees should ignore the miracle (ver. 28) is surely not strange, although it may well have influenced their subsequent delibera- tions; that the action of the Sadducees should now be more coercive than on the former occasion was only natural on the part of men who feared that vengeance would be taken on them for the death of Jesus by an uprising of the people (vv. 28 and 26).- -διὰ νυκτὸς = νυκτός, νύκτωρ (cf. Luke ii. 8) in classical Greek. The phrase is used four times by St. Luke in Acts, cf. xvi. 19, xvii. 10, xxiii. 31, and cf. Luke v. 5 (and ix. 37, D, διὰ τῆς ἡμέρας): nowhere else in N.T. In all the passages Meyer thinks that the expression means throughout the night, but such a meaning would be in- consistent with the context at all events here and in xvi. 19; and xvii. το is doubtful.— See Blass, Grammatik des να 129, “by night” (nachts). Simcox speaks of this expression in Acts as an ‘‘almost adverbial phrase,” Lan- guage of Ν. T., p. 140.