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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - Acts 12:23 - 12:23
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An angel of the Lord smote him
An interesting parallel is furnished by the story of Alp Arslan, a Turkish prince of the eleventh century. “The Turkish prince bequeathed a dying admonition to the pride of kings. 'In my youth,' said Alp Arslan, ' I was advised by a sage to humble myself before God; to distrust my own strength; and never to despise the most contemptible foe. I have neglected these lessons, and my neglect has been deservedly punished. Yesterday, as from an eminence, I beheld the numbers, the discipline, and the spirit of my armies; the earth seemed to tremble under my feet, and I said in my heart, surely thou art the king of the world, the greatest and most invincible of warriors. These armies are no longer mine; and, in the confidence of my personal strength, I now fall by the hand of an assassin'” (Gibbon, “Decline and Fall”).
Eaten of worms (σκωληκόβρωτος)
Only here in New Testament. Of Pheretima, queen of Cyrene, distinguished for her cruelties, Herodotus says: “Nor did Pheretima herself end her days happily. For on her return to Egypt from Libya, directly after taking vengeance on the people of Barca, she was overtaken by a most horrid death. Her body swarmed with worms, which ate her flesh while she was still alive” (iv., 205). The term, as applied to disease in the human body, does not occur in any of the medical writers extant. Theophrastus, however, uses it of a disease in plants. The word σκώληξ is used by medical writers of intestinal worms. Compare the account of the death of Antiochus Epiphanes, the great persecutor of the Jews. “So that the worms rose up out of the body of this wicked man, and whiles he lived in sorrow and pain, his flesh fell away, and the filthiness of his smell was noisome to all his army” (2 Maccabees 9:9). Sylla, the Roman dictator, is also said to have suffered from a similar disease.
Gave up the ghost
See on Act 5:5.