Ver. 22. évedvvapotro: only used here by St. Luke, and elsewhere only by St. Paul (five or six times), and always of religious and spiritual strength; used also three times in the LXX; twice with reference to the power of the Spirit, Judg. vi. 34, 1 Chron. xii. 18; in Psalm li. 7, perhaps the simple verb Suvapéw.—ovve- χυνε: “confounded,” so A. and R.V., or rather, ‘‘ continued to confound,” im- perfect active, cf. ii. 6, ‘were con-
20—24.
239
23. ὡς δὲ ἐπληροῦντο ἡμέραι ixavat, συνεβουλεύσαντο οἱ ᾿Ιουδαῖοι
ἀνελεῖν αὐτόν: 24. ἐγνώσθη δὲ τῷ Σαύλῳ ἡ ἐπιβουλὴ αὐτῶν.
founded,” passive, see also xix. 32, xxi. 31 (critical notes above): from συνχύννω (συνχύνω), nowhere used except in Acts, as above (see Moulton and Geden). συνχύννω: not found in classical Greek nor in LXX, a later form of συγχέω, συνχέω T. W. H. (cf. ἐκχύννομαι from ἐκχέω, three times in Acts, also two or three times in Luke’s Gospel ; in Matthew twice, in Mark once, also Rom. v. 5, Jude yer. ΣΙ: not found in LXX, but see Theod., ο οσα. αν. LA) a ἵπ ACES, | xe ο. συνέχεον from συνχέω (but see in loco), Moulton and Geden. According to the best MS., Tisch., W.H., read the double v, but elsewhere we have only one vy, Winer- Schmiedel, p. 132, Blass, Gram., p. 41.— συµβιβάζων: only used by St. Luke and St. Paul, cf. xvi. 1Ο, xix. 33, see especially for this last passage, Grimm-Thayer, sub v., cf. i Cor. ii. 16. In the LXX the word is used in the sense of teaching, instructing, Exod. iv. 12, 15, xviii. 16, Isa. xl. 13, etc., this usage is purely Biblical (in Attic Greek rather προσβ. in this sense): lit., (1) to bring together; (2) then like συµβάλλω, to put together, to compare, to examine closely ; (3) so to deduce, to prove; thus here the word may well imply that Saul compared Messianic passages of the O.T. with the events of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, and hence deduced the proof that He was the Christ, cf. παρατιθέµενος in xvii. 3. So Theophylact explains διδάσ- κων καὶ ἑρμηνεύων out of the Scriptures which the Jews themselves knew.
Ver. 23. ἡμέρας ἱκανάς: whether the period thus described was meant to cover the definite period in Gal. i. 16, 1.ε., as including St. Paul’s visit to Arabia, it is difficult to decide. Lightfoot holds that ἱκαγός in St. Luke’s language is con- nected rather with largeness than with smallness, Luke vii. 12, Acts xx. 37, and
that the Hebrew phrase (999° which
St. Luke is copying admits of almost any extension of time (Galatians, p. 89, note). Paley, Hore Paulina, v., 2, pointed out in the Hebrew of 1 Kings ii. 38, 39, an instance of the use of the phrase ‘‘ many days’? =a period of three years (so Lewin, Felten). Itis therefore possible that St. Luke might employ an indefinite, vague expression, an expression which at all events is characteristic of him. On the other hand, Wendt (1899), whilst ‘seeing here a longer period than in ver.
παρε-
Ig, compares ver. 43, xviii. 18, xxvii. 7, and decides that the phrase cannot de- note time measured by years (so Blass). A reason’ for St. Luke’s indefiniteness may perhaps be that St. Paul’s visit to Arabia was not within the scope and purpose of his narrative; or Belser, Bei- trage (p. 55), and others may be right in maintaining that the visit may lie between vv. 22 and 23, and that, as such intervals are not wanting in Luke’s Gospel, it is not strange that they should occur in Acts, but that it does not at all follow that the historian was unacquainted with St. Luke’s Arabian journey, as Wendt maintains: ‘‘sed aliquid omittere non est idem atque illud negare” Knabenbauer, in loco. But if we take the expression, ver. 19, certain days to indicate the first visit to Damascus, and the expression, ver. 23, many days to indicate a second visit, the visit to Arabia, Gal. i. 19, may lie between these two (Knabenbauer), and if we accept the reading ᾿Ιησοῦν in ver. 20, it may be that Saul first preached that Jesus was the Son of God, and then after his first retirement in Arabia he was prepared to prove on his return to Damascus that He was also the Christ, ver. 22 (see Mr. Barnard’s article, Ex- positor, April, 1899).