Ver. 6. οἱ δέ . . .: Paul shook off the viper—the natives looked for a fatal re- sult. They knew the deadly nature of the bite, and their subsequent conduct shows that they regarded it as nothing short of miraculous that Paul escaped. So St. Luke evidently wishes to describe the action, see on pév οὖν, νετ. 5, and δέ, Rendall, Acts, p. 161, Appendix.— προσεδόκων, see Ὀε]ουν.- πίµπρασθαι, from the form πίµπρηµι, present infini- tive passive, see critical note, and Winer- Schmiedel, p. 122; cf. in LXX, Numb. ν. 21, 22, 27, πρήθειν, H. and R., of parts of the body becoming swollen. In classi- cal Greek πίµπρασθαι means ‘to take
540
γινόµενον,ὶ µεταβαλλόμενοι ἔλεγον θεὸν αὐτὸν εἶναι.
7. Ἐν δὲ τοῖς
περὶ τὸν τόπον ἐκεῖνον ὑπῆρχε Χωρία τῷ πρώτῳ τῆς νήσου, ὀνόματι Ποπλίῳ, ὃς ἀναδεξάμενος ἡμᾶς τρεῖς ἡμέρας 2 φιλοφρόνως ἐξένισεν.
1 Instead of µεταβαλλ. (NHL, so Tisch., Hilg.) ABP have the aorist µεταβαλ.,
so W.H., Weiss, Blass, Wendt.
2 After ηµερας τρεις Hilg. adds ev ry οικιφ αντον, but not Blass.
fire,” and πρήθειν “to cause to swell,” and those two ideas are combined, as in the word πρηστήρ, “a venomous snake, the bite of which caused both inflamma- tion and swelling” (Page, in loco), cf. Lucan, ix., 790. In the N.T. the verb is peculiar to St. Luke, and it is the usual medical word for inflammation (Hobart, Zahn) in Hipp., Aret., ἀαἱεπ.---καταπίπ- τειν: only in Luke in N.T., re Luke viii. 6, Acts xxvi. 14, it was used by medical writers of persons falling down suddenly from wounds, or in epileptic fits; Hipp., Galen (Hobart, Zahn), cf. the asp-bitten Charmian in Ant. and Cleo. (Shake? speare), Act v., Scene 2.--ἄφνω: only in Acts ii. 2, xvi. 26.—mpogd. . . . Gro- πον: the two words are described by Hobart as exactly those which a medical man would use (so too Zahn), and he gives two instances of the latter word from Galen, in speaking of the bite of a rabid dog, or of poison, p. 289. The word is used elsewhere in N.T. of some- thing morally amiss; cf. Luke xxili. 41, Acts xxv. 5, 2 Thess. iii. 2, but here evi- dently of something amiss physically. In R.V. it is rendered in each passage “amiss”. The word in N.T. is confined to Luke and Paul, but it is found several times in LXX in an ethical sense (as in N.T., except in, loco), cf. Job iv. 8, xi. 11, xxvii. 6, xxxiv. 12, xxxv. 13, Prov. xxiv. 55 (xxx. 20), cf. 2 Macc. xiv. 23; so too in Thucydides, Josephus, Plutarch, etc. ; but it is used of any harm happening to a person as here, cf. Jos., Ant., vill., 14, 43 Xi. 5, 2; Herodian, iv., 11. προσ- δοκία, peculiar to St. Luke in N.T.; cf. Luke xxi. 26, Acts xii. 11, and προσ- δοκάω, in Luke six times, in Acts five, was, no doubt, frequently used in medical language (Hobart, Zahn) for the expecta- tion of the result of a disease or par- oxysm ‘‘ when they were long in expecta- tion,” R.V.), but in Jos., Ant., viii., 14, 4, we have καὶ μηδὲν τῶν ἀτόπων προσ- δοκᾷν, and in Herodian, iv., 11, μηδὲν ἄτοπον προσδοκοῦντες εἰς αὐτὸν γιν., cf. Luke iv. 23 (Klostermann, Weiss).— µεταβαλλόμενοι, so frequently in classics without τὴν γνώµην, cf. Jos., Β. F.,v.,9,3-
---θεὸν αὐτὸν elvar: it is perhaps fanciful to suppose with Grotius and Wetstein that they compared him to the infant Hercules, or to Aésculapius represented with the serpent, but the latter is un- doubtedly right in adding, “ eleganter autem hic describitur vulgi inconstantia ”’ ; we naturally compare with Chrysostom the startling change in the people of Lystra, xiv., 11, 19, ‘‘ Aut latro inquiunt aut deus. . . datur tertium: homo Dei” (Bengel).
Ver. 7. χωρία: “lands,” R.V. Vul- gate, predia. In this passage τόπος and χωρίον occur together, but whilst the former is used of place indefinitely, the latter is used of a definite portion of space enclosed or complete in itself; cf. John iv. 5 ; Grimm-Thayer’s Syn., sub v., τόπος. -- τῷ πρώτφ: an Official title technically correct in Malta, Ramsay, St. Paul, p. 343, honoraria appellatio, so too Schmiedel, Encycl. Bibl., i., 47, 1899; as his father was alive, he would not have been called from his estates (see, how- ever, O. Holtzmann, Neutest. Zeitge- schichte, p. 106), but the inscriptional authorities confirm the first view, a Greek inscription giving πρῶτος Μελιταίων καὶ Πάτρων, applied {ο a Roman Knight, Pru- dens by name, ἱππεὺς Ῥ., so that Publius may well have been of the same rank, and in a Latin inscription we have municipii Melitensium primus omnium, see Zahn, Einleitung, ii., p. 422; Blass, in loco; Zéckler, Holtzmann, Knabenbauer, also Alford, Lewin, Hackett, Renan ; pos- sibly the conjecture may be correct that the Greek and Latin inscriptions give a translation of a title which the Romans already found in vogue in the island. Publius would be naturally the chief authority in the island under the Roman pretor of Sicily, Cic., Verr., ἵν., 18.— Ποπλίφ: Greek form for the prenomen Publius, ‘nomen a populus derivatum,” Blass; Ramsay, p. 343, thinks that Poplius may = the Greek rendering of the nomen Popilius, but that the peasantry may have spoken of him familiarly by his prenomen Publius. Tradition makes him bishop of Malta (Felten, Knaben-