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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadBullinger Companion Bible Notes - Acts 16:16 - 16:16
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
damsel. Greek. paidiske. See note on Act_12:13. read "a spirit, a Python". The Python was a serpent destroyed, according to Greek Mythology, by Apollo, who was hence called Pythius, and the priestess at the famous temple at Delph was called the Pythoness. Through her the oracle was delivered. See an instance of these oracular utterances in Pember's Earth's Earliest Ages, ch. XII. The term Python became equivalent to a soothsaying demon, as in the case of this slave-girl who had an evil spirit as "control". She would be nowadays called a medium. The Lord's commission in Mark 16 was to cast out demons (Act_16:17). To say that the girl was a ventriloquist, who was disconcerted, and so lost her power, shows what shifts are resorted to in order to get rid of the supernatural.
masters = owners. Greek. kurios. App-98.
gain. Greek. ergasia = work; hence, wages, pay. Only here, Act_16:19; Act_19:24, Act_19:25. Luk_12:58. Eph_4:19.
soothsaying = fortune-telling. Greek. manteuomai. Only here. In Septuagint used of false prophets. Deu_18:10. 1Sa_28:8, &c.