d ch. i. 8: ii. 32: iii. 15: v. 32. xii. 3: xxii. 18. ch. xxvi. 6. Rom. iv. 13. Gal. iii. came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, a P who are cch. i.11. his witnesses unto the people. 32 And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made e Gen. iii. 15: unto the fathers, 33 God hath a fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus [ again]; as it is also written in the $ second psalm, Thou art my fPSA. ii.7. Son, this day have I begotten thee. 3 And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he said on this wise, I will give you & Isa. lv. 3. the sure mercies of David. 35 Wherefore he saith also h f Heb. i. 5: v. 5. ch. ii. 31. in another psalm, Thou shalt not suffer thine Holy One h P. xvi. 10. to see corruption. 36 For David, after he had served his i Ps. lxxviii. 72. P read, who are now. 4 render, completely fulfilled. $ Some of our ancient authorities read, first: see note. 31.] The now gives peculiar force to the sentence. Who are at this moment witnesses,-living witnesses; i. e. ‘I am not telling you a matter of the past merely, but one made present to the people of the Jews by living and eye-witnessing testimony.' 32. we declare unto you] He and Barnabas were not of the number of those who came up with Him from Galilee unto Jerusalem, ver. 31, nor was their mission to the Jewish people. They are at this moment witnessing to the people, we, preaching to you. The we is emphatic. Stier observes how entirely Paul sinks himself, his history and commission from Christ, in the great Object of his preaching. 33. in that he hath raised up Jesus] The term raised up is ambiguous: but here the meaning, from the dead, is absolutely required by the context; both because the word is repeated with that addition (ver. 34), and because the Apostle's emphasis throughout the passage is on the Resurrection (ver. 30) as the final fulfilment of God's promises regarding Jesus. The other meaning, 'having raised up,' as in ch. vii. 37, is however maintained by several Commentators. Meyer well remarks, that this meaning would hardly in our passage have been thought of or defended, had it not been that the subjoined citation from Ps. ii. has been thought necessarily to apply to our Lord's mission upon earth. .... romit. refers the prophecy in its full completion to the Resurrection of our Lord: similarly in Rom. i. 4, "declared to be the Son of God with power. by the resurrection from the dead." 34. now no more to return...] Compare Rom. vi. 9, Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more : death hath no more dominion over him." It is interesting to trace the same shades of thought in the speeches and epistles of Paul; and abundant opportunity of doing so will occur as we proceed.-But here the returning to corruption does not merely imply death, so that Jesus should have once undergone it, and no more hereafter, as the A. V. seems to imply but we must supply to die, and in consequence to' before the words, understanding them as the result of death, if it had dominion over Him: thus the clause answers even more remarkably to Rom. vi. 9. the holy things is the LXX rendering of the The reading of some of our ancient authorities here, in the first psalm, is to be accounted for by the fact that anciently our second Psalm was the first, our first being reckoned as prefatory. St. Paul j 1 Kings ii. 10. Own generation by the will of God, ' fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption: 37 but he, whom God raised again, saw no corruption. 38 Be it known ch. ii. 29. Dan. ix. 24. Luke xxiv. 47. 1 John ii. 12. 1 Isa, liii. 11. Rom. iii. 28: vii. 19. k Jer. xxxi. 34. unto you therefore, ["men and] brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: 39 and 1 by him all that believe are justified from all vii. 3. Heb. things from which ye could not be justified ♬ by the law of Moses. 40 Beware therefore, lest that come upon you, m Isa. xxix. 14. which is spoken of in " the prophets; 41 Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish: for I work a work in your days, a work which ye shall in no wise believe, though a man declare it unto you. 42 And b when the Jews were gone out Hab. i. 5. u omit: see on ch. i. 16. y render, in. a render, because. I better here, announced. 2 render, every one that believeth is. b read and render, as they were going out, they besought. filment in David. his own generation] could not do: leaving it for inference, or for further teaching, that this was absolutely ALL that the law could do nothing. The same thought is expanded Rom. viii. 3. This interpretation will be the more clearly established, when we remember that to justify from sin was not in any sense, and could not be, the office of the law, by which came the knowledge of sin. The expression "to justify from" is only once used again by St. Paul (Rom. vi. 7, marginal rendering: the A. V. has "freed from sin," but wrongly), and that where he is arguing against the continuing in sin. 40.] 41. every one that believeth is not to be joined with in him, which (see above) is contrasted with in the law of Moses.-It is quite in St. Paul's manner to use every one that believeth thus absolutely: see Rom. i. 16; iii. 22; x. 4 (Gal. iii. 22). The object of preaching the Gospel to the Jews first was for a testimony to them: its reception was almost uniformly unfavourable and against such anticipated rejection he now warns them. ye despisers] So the LXX render the Hebrew word, signifying among the heathen,' so in A. V., for which they seem to have read some other word resembling it. The prophecy was spoken of the judgment to be inflicted by means of the Chaldæans: but neither this nor any other prophecy is confined in its application to the occasion of which it was once spoken, but gathers up under it all analogous procedures of God's providence: such repeated fulfilments increasing in weight, and approaching nearer and nearer to that last с Χίν. 22. o Tit. ii. 11. Heb. xii. 15. 1 Pet. v. 12. 1 Pet. iv. 4. Jude 10. of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words, might be preached to them the next sabbath. 43 Now when the congregation was broken up, many of the Jews and religious proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas: who, speaking to them, "persuaded them to continue in the "ch. xi, 23: grace of God. 44 And the next sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God. 45 But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy, and spake against those things which were spoken Pch. xviii. 6. by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming. 46 Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but r seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves r unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles. 47 For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth. 48 And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: "and as many as were render, spoken. ch. iii. 26. q Matt. x. 6. ver. 26. Rom. 10. Deut. xxxii. 21. s Isa. and great fulfilment of all the promises of grace and all the threats of wrath, by which every prophetic word shall be exhausted. 66 66 42.] The insertions in the text followed by the A. V. have been made partly perhaps to remove the ambiguity in the they" and them," and to shew who they were that besought, &c. But they confuse the sense. As they (the congregation) were going out, they (the same) besought. 43.] See a similar expression ch. xi. 23. There too, we have the grace of God similarly used of the work of the Gospel begun in the hearts of the converts. 44. came... together] In the synagogue;' it was the sight of the Gentile crowds in their house of prayer which stirred up the jealousy of the Jews. 45. contradicting and blaspheming] These words form a graphic repetition, passing from the particular thing which they did, viz. contradict the words spoken by Paul, to the spirit in which they did it, viz. a contradictious and blaspheming one. 46. should first have been spoken to you] See ch. iii. 26; Rom. i. 16. 47.] They refer the word thee in the prophecy not to themselves as teachers, but to Christ. 48. as many as were dis posed to eternal life] The meaning of this word disposed must be determined by the context. The Jews had judged themselves d 1.16. Exod. xxxii. v.5. Rom. x. 19. xxviii. 28. .32. Matt. xxi. 43. s ch. xviii. 6: d ordained to u ch. ii. 47. render, disposed: see note. 66 unworthy of eternal life: the Gentiles, as eternal life believed. 49 And the word of the Lord was published throughout all the region. 50 But the Jews stirred up the devout and honourable women, and the x 2 Tim. iii. 11. chief men of the city, and raised persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them out of their coasts. 51 y But they shook off the dust of their feet against them, and came unto Iconium. 52 And the disciples were filled with joy, and with the Holy Ghost. y Matt. x. 14. Mark vi. 11. Luke ix. 5. ch.xviii. 6. z Matt. v. 12. John xvi. 22. ch. ii. 46. XIV. 1 And it came to pass in Iconium, that they went both together into the synagogue of the Jews, and so spake, that a great multitude both of the Jews and also of the Greeks believed. 2 But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles, and made their minds evil affected against the brethren. 3 Long time therefore abode they speaking a Mark xvi. 20. boldly in the Lord, which gave testimony unto the word of his grace, and granted signs and wonders to be done by their hands. 4 But the multitude of the city was divided: Heb. ii. 4. e render, the Jews which believed not stirred up and embittered the minds of the Gentiles. renderings as this of "pre-ordained" in the Vulgate version had on the minds of men like St. Augustine and his followers in the Western Church, in treating the great questions of free will, election, reprobation, and final perseverance; and on some writers in the reformed churches who, though rejecting the authority of that version, were yet swayed by it away from the sense of the original, here and in ch. ii. 47. The tendency of the Eastern Fathers, who read the original Greek, was, he remarks, in a different direction from that of the Western School. 50. devout... women] Women had a strong religious influence both for and against Christianity: see for the former ch. xvi. 14; xvii. 4; Phil. iv. 3; 1 Cor. vii. 16: for the latter, we have Josephus's statement, that the majority of the wives of the Damascenes were proselytes which may be compared with ch. ix. 22-25. These were proselytes of the gate, or at least inclined to Judaism. expelled them] Though the chief men of the city, at the instigation, probably, of their wives, were concerned, this seems to have been no legal expulsion: for we find them revisiting Antioch on their return, ch. xiv. 21;-but only a compulsory retirement for peace, and their own safety's sake. 51.] As commanded by our Lord, Matt. x. 14, where see note. Iconium] A populous city, east of Antioch in Pisidia, lying in a fertile plain at the foot of, and almost surrounded by, Mount Taurus. At this time, it was the capital of Lycaonia, and had around it a distinct territory, ruled by a tetrarch, and probably on that account is not reckoned to any of the abovementioned districts. It became famous in the middle ages as the capital of the Seljukian Sultans, and had a great part in the growth of the Ottoman empire. It is now Konía, a town of 30,000 inhabitants. 52.] See, for similar "joyful perorations," as Dr. Wordsworth well designates them, Luke xxiv. 52; ch. v. 41; xii. 24. CHAP. XIV. 1. Greeks] Probably these were of the number of the devout persons, or worshippers of God, mentioned ch. xiii. 43, 50; xvi. 14; xvii. 4, 17; xviii. 7, i. e. those of the uncircumcised who were more or less attached to the Jewish religion. 2.] which believed not, viz. when Paul preached. Ver. 3 gives the sequel of ver. 1,-ver. 4, of ver. 2. b and part held with the Jews, and part with the apostles. bch. xiii. 3. 5 And when there was fan assault made both of the Gentiles, and also of the Jews with their rulers, to use c2 Tim. iii. 11. them despitefully, and to stone them, they were ware of с it, and fled unto Lystra and Derbe, cities of Lycaonia, d Matt. x. 23. and unto the region that lieth round about: 7 and there they preached the gospel. ix. 28, 29. 8 e And there sat a certain man at Lystra, impotent in e ch. iii. 2. his feet, being a cripple from his mother's womb, who never had walked: 9 the same & heard Paul speak: who stedfastly beholding him, and perceiving that he had Matt vi 10: faith to be healed, 10 said with a loud voice, Stand & Isa, xxxv. 6. upright on thy feet. And he leaped and walked. 11 And when the people saw what Paul had done, they their voices, saying in the speech of Lycaonia, are come down to us in the likeness of men. called Barnabas, h Jupiter; and Paul, i Mercurius, because h lifted up xxviii. 6. The gods hch, viii. 10: 12 And they f render, a stir, or movement: see note. Such a split into two factions was a com- 5.] Dr. Howson remarks, that there was no "assault" made on them, as the A.V. has it; for if there had been, they could not but have been ware of it: but a stir, or movement, was going on which would have led to an assault, had they not been ware of it. 6. Lystra] This, as well as Derbe (of both which very little further is known), was probably a small town at the foot of the singular mountain-mass known as the Kara-dagh, or black mountain, Lystra being S., and Derbe S.E. from Iconium. The sites are very uncertain. There are the ruins of about forty Christian churches on the north side of the Karadagh, at a place called by the Turks Binbir-Kilisseh (the 1001 churches), which the most recent travellers believe may be Lystra. In one of these places (probably at Lystra, see note, ch. xvi. 1) Paul found and took up Timothy on his second journey; and from the expression "my beloved child" in 1 Cor. iv. 17, compared with the use of "father" in the same chapter, as defined ver. 15, we are justified in concluding that he had been converted by the Apostle; and, if so, during this visit.-There appear to have been few Jews in the district we hear of no synagogue. loud voice] The original implies that he |