‘in the imperfect; they were singing, and
the prisoners were listening, when the earthquake happened.
Ver. 26. ἄφνω, see on ii, 2.---σεισμὸς, cf. iv. 31, where the divine nearness and presence were manifested in a similar manner; the neighbourhood and the period were conspicuous for such con-
ον
23—28.
ἐπηκροῶντο δὲ αὐτῶν ot δέσµιοι.
451
26. ἄφνω δὲ σεισμὸς ἐγένετο
µέγας, ὥστε σαλευθῆναι τὰ θεµέλια τοῦ δεσµωτηρίου 1: ἀνεῴχθησάν
ἔξυπνος δὲ γενόμενος ὁ δεσμοφύλαξ, καὶ ἰδὼν ἀνεωγμένας τὰς θύρας τῆς φυλακῆς, σπασάµενος ὅ µάχαιραν ἔμελλεν ἑαυτὸν ἀναιρεῖν, νοµίζων
α lol a c ύ ~ ‘
ἐκπεφευγέναι τοὺς δεσµίους.
28. ἐφώνησε δὲ φωνῇ µεγάλῃ ὁ Παῦλος λέγων, Μηδὲν πράξῃς σεαυτῷ κακόν:
ἅπαντες Ὑάρ ἐσμεν ἐνθάδε.
Ἰανεφχθησαν, but BCD 31, 33, 40, 180; so Lach., Alford, W.H., Blass, Weiss Hilg. have ηνεφχθησαν, whilst AE 13, 54, 61, Or., Tisch have ηνοιχθησαν; Wendt cannot decide. παραχρηµα om. B, Lucif., Gig., so Blass; Hilg. retains
2 aveOn, SQ'D! ανελνθη, 5ο Hilg.
* waxatpav, BCD 61" prefix την, so Lach., W.H., R.V., Weiss, Blass, Hilg,
vulsions of nature, cf. Plumptre on Matt. xxiv. 7, and Ramsay, St. Paul, p. 221.— παραχρῆμα, see critical notes.—dvegy- qodv te... αἱ θύραι πᾶσαι: any one who has seen a Turkish prison, says Prof. Ramsay, will not wonder at this; ‘each door was merely closed by a bar, and the earthquake, as it passed along ‘the ground, forced the door-posts apart ' from each other, so that the bar slipped from its hold, and the door swung open,” and see further description on same page. ----ἀνέθη, cf. xxvii. 40, nowhere else in N.T. in same sense; in LXX we have the same collocation of words in Mal. iv. 2. See also for the phrase, Plut., Alex., 73; see Winer-Schmiedel, p. ror. If we ask, Why did not the prisoners escape? the answer is that a semi-Oriental mob would be panic-stricken by the earthquake, and there is nothing strange in the fact that they made no dash for safety; moreover, the opportunity must have been very quickly lost, for the jailor was not only roused himself, but evidently called at once to the guard for lights; see Ram- say’s description, 4. s., and the comments of Blass, in loco, and Felten, note, p. 318, to the same effect as Ramsay, that / the prisoners were panic-stricken, and had no time to collect their thoughts for flight.
Ver. 27. ἔξνπνος: only here in Ν.Τ., once in LXX, 1 Esd. iii. 3, of Darius waking from 5ἱεερ.---μάχαιραν: article omitted in T.R., see critical note. Weiss thinks that the omission occurs since in xii. 2, and five times in Luke, no article is found with µάχαιρα, τὴν = his sword, cf. Mark xiv. 47.--ἤμελλεν, cf. iii. 3, v. 35, xii. 6, etc., characteristic Lucan word, see Friedrich, p. 12. The act was quite natural, the act of a man who had lost in his terror his self-control (Weiss),—
ἑαυτὸν ἀναιρεῖν: to avoid the disgraceful fate which would be allotted to him by Roman law, according to which the jailor was subjected to the same death as the escaped prisoners would have suffered (Wetstein, in loco), cf. xii. 19, xxvii. 42.— νοµίζων, see on vii. 25. It seems hyper- critical to ask, How could Paul have seen that the jailor was about to kill himself ? That there must have.been some kind of light in the outer prison is evident, other- wise the jailor could not have even seen that the doors were open, nor is there any difficulty in supposing that Paul out of the darkness of the inner priscn would see through the opened doors any one in the outer doorway, whilst to the jailor the inner prison would be lost in dark- ness. Moreover, as Blass notes, Paul may have heard from the jailor’s utter- ances what he meant to do: ‘“ neque enim tacuisse putandus est” (see also Ramsay, Felten, Hackett, Lumby, in loco).