182
ἔτη τετρακόσια.
Vit.
» 7. καὶ τὸ ἔθνος, ᾧ ἐὰν] δουλεύσωσι, κρινῶ ἐγώ,
Ν - εἶπεν ὁ Θεός: “καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα ἐξελεύσονται, καὶ λατρεύσουσί por
2 a / ῃ 35 εν τῷ τοπῳ τουτῳ.
Νο” > - , ~ Ps A 8. καὶ ἔδωκεν αὐτῷ διαθήκην περιτοµῆς: καὶ
ϱ 3 / A > , s > | αν η ~ 3 / οὕτως ἐγέννησε τὸν Ισαάκ, καὶ περιέτεµεν αὐτὸν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ ὀγδόῃ .
1 εαν ΝΑΟΕΗΡ, so Tisch., W.H. alt., Vulg., Chrys., Lach., Weiss, Wendt, so in LXX, Gen. xv. 14;
NBEHP, d,
Weiss; av BD, so W.H. δονλευσωσι
δουλευσουσι ACD 26, 96, Sah., Ir., so Tisch., Alford, W.H., R.V., so Blass in B
(see his Proleg. to Acta Apost., p. 35, and Grammatik, p. 212).
In vii. 3 on the
contrary the LXX has ην av σοι δειξω; only Ν reads εαν, perhaps anticipating the
reading in vv. before us (Weiss).
Winer-Schmiedel, p. 52, points out that δουλεν-
σουσιν, though well attested, is open to suspicion.
cf. also for the same mode of reckoning Philo, Quis rer. div. her., 54, Ῥ. 511, Mang. But neither here nor in Gal. iii. 17 is the argument in the least degree affected by the precise period, or by the adoption of one of the two chronological systems in preference to the other, and in a speech round numbers would be quite sufficient to mark the progressive stages in the history of the nation and of God’s dealings with them. For an ex- planation of the point see Lightfoot, Gal. iii. 17, who regards the number in Genesis as given in round numbers, but in Exodus with historical exactness (to the same effect Wendt, Felten, Zéckler). But in the LXX version, Exod. xii. 40, the four hundred and thirty years cover the sojourn both in Egypt and in Canaan, thus including the sojourn of the Patri- archs in Canaan before the migration, and reducing the actual residence in Egypt to about half this period, the Vatican MS. reading four hundred and thirty-five years after adding καὶ ἐν γῇ Χαναὰν (the word five, however, πέντε, being erased), and the Alexandrian MS. reading after ἐν Χαναὰν the words αὐτοὶ καὶ of πατέρες αὐτῶν, making the re- vision in the chronology more decisive. This is the chronology adopted in Gal. iii. 17, and by Josephus, Ant., li., 15, 2; but the latter writer in other passages, Ant., ii., 9, 1, and Β.Υ., v., 9, 4, adopts the same reckoning as we find here in Acts. But see also Charles, Assumption of Moses, pp. 3, 4 (1897).
Ver. 7. The oratio recta is introduced by the words εἶπεν 6 Θεός . . . κρινῶ ἐγώ emphatic, cf. Rom. xii. 1ο. In this verse the quotation is a free rendering of Gen. xv. 14, the words ὧδε μετὰ ἄποσ- κευῆς πολλῆς being omitted after ἐξελ., and the latter part of the verse being apparently introduced from Exod. ili. 12. And so at length, after so long a time, God appointed for Himself a “holy
place,” cf. vi. 13 (Blass).—@ ἐὰν δονλεύ- σωσι, cf. LXX, Gen. xv. 14, and see critical note above, cf. also Burton, Ν. Τ. Moods and Tenses, p. 123.
Ver. 8. διαθήκην, fedus (Grimm, Blass), the same word is used in LXX, Gen. xvii. 10, and with two or three exceptions uniformly in LXX for “ cove- nant,” so too in the Apocrypha with apparently two exceptions. The ordinary word for ‘‘ covenant,” συνθήκη, is very rare in LXX (though used by the later translators, Aquila, Sym., Theod., for
IM 4d, but see also Ramsay, Expositor,
ii., Pp. 322, 323 (1898)). But the word διαθ. would be suitably employed to express a divine covenant, because it could not be said that in such a case the contractors are in any degree of equal standing (συνθήκη). In the N.T. the sense of “covenant” is correct (except in Gal. iii. 15 and Heb. ix. 16). But in classical writers from the time of Plato διαθήκη generally has the meaning of a will, a testament, a disposition of property, and in the Latin renderings of the word in the N.T. we find uniformly testamentum in cases where the sense of “covenant ”’ is beyond dispute (Luke i. 72, Acts iii. 25 d. dispositionis; and here d. has dis- positionem, also in Rom. xi. 27), cf., ε.δ., in this verse, Vulgate and Par. No doubt the early translators would render διαθήκη by its ordinary equivalent, al- though in the common language it is quite possible that testamentum had a wider meaning than the classical sense of will, see Westcott, Hebrews, additional note on ix. 16; Lightfoot on Gal. iii. 15; A. B. Davidson, Hebrews, p. 161; and ‘Covenant’? in Hastings’ B.D. and Grimm-Thayer, sub v.; Hatch, Essays in Biblical Greek, pp. 47, 48; and more recently Ramsay, Expositor, ii., pp. 300 and 321 ff. (1898).