ειν: 23. πολλάς τε ἐπιθέντες αὐτοῖς πληγάς, ἔβαλον εἰς φυλακήν, παραγγείλαντες τῷ δεσμοφύλακι ἀσφαλῶς τηρεῖν αὐτούς: 24. ὃς παραγγελίαν τοιαύτην εἰληφώς, ἔβαλεν αὐτοὺς εἰς τὴν ἐσωτέραν
φυλακήν, καὶ τοὺς πόδας αὐτῶν ἠσφαλίσατο εἰς τὸ ξύλον.
25. Κατὰ
δὲ τὸ μεσονύκτιον Παῦλος καὶ Σίλας προσευχόµενοι ὕμνουν τὸν Θεόν -
the verb seems to make against the inter- pretation; it means in classical and in later Greek to rend all round, tear off, cf. the numerous instances in Wetstein, and so it expresses the rough way in which the lictors tore off the garments of the prisoners. In 2 Macc. iv. 38 the word is used of tearing off the garments of another, see Wendt’s (1888) note in loco.—paBStlew : to beat with rods: thrice St. Paul suffered this punishment, 2 Cor. xi. 25, grievous and degrading, of a Roman scourging, cf. his own words in 1 Thess. ii. 2, ὑβρισθέντες ὡς οἴδατε ἐν Φιλίπποις. Nothing can be alleged against the truthfulness of the narrative on the ground that Paul as a Roman citizen could not have been thus mal- treated. The whole proceeding was evi- dently tumultuary and hasty, and the magistrates acted with the high-handed- ness characteristic of the fussy provincial authorities; in such a scene St. Paul's protest may well have been made, but would very easily be disregarded. The incident in xxii. 25, which shows us how the Apostle barely escaped a similar punishment amidst the tumult and shouts of the mob in Jerusalem, and the instances quoted by Cicero, In Verr., v., 62, of a prisoner remorselessly scourged, while he cried “inter dolorem crepitumque pla- garum ” Civis Romanus sum, enables us to see how easily Paul and Silas (who probably enjoyed the Roman citizenship, cf. ver. 37) might have protested and yet have suffered.
Ver. 23. δεσμοφύλακι, Lucian, Toz., “30; Jos., Ant., il., 5, 1, LXX ἀρχιδεσμο- φύλαξ, Gen. xxxix. 21-23, xl. 3 A, xli. το A (cf. the word ἀρχισωματοφύλαξ, Deissmann, Neue Bibelstudien, p. 93). Chrysostom and Oecumenius identify him with Stephanus, but he was the first- fruits of Achaia, 1 Cor. xvi. 15.
Ver. 24. ἐσωτέραν: comparative for superlative, as often in N.T. (Blass). Not necessarily underground, but a part of the prison which would have been further from such light and air as could
be had.—rd ξύλον, Hebrew TD, Job
xxxiii. rr (A κυκλώματι), of. Arist., Εᾳ., 367, 393, 705; Herod., vi., 75; ix., 37; and
instances in Wetstein, Liv., viii., 28, Plaut., Caft., iii., 70, Latin nervus. So Eusebius uses the word of the martyrs in Gaul (see Alford). In Jeremiah’s case another and equivalent word is used in the Heb. xxix. 26=LXX ἀπόκλεισμα. The same Hebrew is used in 2 Chron. xvi. ΤΟ, where LXX has simply φυλακή.--ἠσφαλίσατο: only elsewhere in N.T.in Matt. xxvii. 64, 65, 66; in LXX and Polyb., ¢f. critical note, ver. 30 in B.
Ver. 25. κατὰ δὲ τὸ µεσονύκτιον: neuter of the adjective µεσονύκτιος, cf. xx. 7, Luke xi. 5, elsewhere only in Mark xiii. 35, often in medical writers, also in Arist., Strabo, Plutarch; in LXX, Judg. xvi. 3 A, Ruth ΠΠ. 8, Ps. exviii. 62 (Isaiah
lix. 19).---προσευχόµενοι, see on chap..
xii. 12.---ὕμνουν with accusative Heb. ii. 12 only, cf. Ephes. v. 19, Col. iii. 16, Trench, Syn., ii, 129. “Ἠος erat gaudium in Spiritu sancto: in carcere ubi nec genua flectere, nec manus tollere poterant’”’ Wetstein, cf. too the often-quoted words of Tertullian Ad Martyres, ii.: ‘* Nihil crus sentit in nervo quum animus in coelo est,’? and Chrys., Hom., xxxvi., '' This let us also do, and we shall open for our- selves—not a prison, but heaven. If we prey: we shall be able even to open heaven.
ias both shut and opened heaven by prayer.”—érnxpodvto: used by Plato (Comicus), and referred to by Kennedy, Sources of Ν. T. Greek, p. 73, 35 one of the rare words mainly colloquial common to N.T. and the comic poets; it occurs also in Lucian, and in Test., xii., Patr. Not found in LXX (but the cognate noun of hearing so as to obey in 1 Sam. xv. 22). But it is peculiar to St. Luke in N.T., and it was the technical word in medical language for ausculta- tion; the word might therefore naturally be employed by him to denote attentive hearing as God ‘‘gave songs in the night”. Both verbs ὕμν. and ἐπηκ. are