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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - Acts 14:12 - 14:12
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Barnabas Jupiter, and Paul Mercury
The Greek names of these deities were Zeus and Hermes. As the herald of the gods, Mercury is the god of skill in the use of speech and of eloquence in general, for the heralds are the public speakers in the assemblies and on other occasions. Hence he is sent on messages where persuasion or argument are required, as to Calypso to secure the release of Ulysses from Ogygia (“Odyssey,” i., 84:); and to Priam to warn him of danger and to escort him to the Grecian fleet (“Iliad,” xxiv., 390). Horace addresses him as the “eloquent” grandson of Atlas, who artfully formed by oratory the savage manners of a primitive race (“Odes,” i., 10). Hence the tongues of sacrificial animals were offered to him. As the god of ready and artful speech, his office naturally extended to business negotiations. He was the god of prudence and skill in all the relations of social intercourse, and the patron of business and gain. A merchant-guild at Rome was established under his protection. And as, from its nature, commerce is prone to degenerate into fraud, so he appears as the god of thievery, exhibiting cunning, fraud, and perjury. “He represents, so to speak, the utilitarian side of the human mind....In the limitation of his faculties and powers, in the low standard of his moral habits, in the abundant activity of his appetites, in his indifference, his ease, his good-nature, in the full-blown exhibition of what Christian theology would call conformity to the world, he is, as strictly as the nature of the case admits, a product of the invention of man. He is the god of intercourse on earth” (Gladstone, “Homer and the Homeric Age”).
The chief speaker (ὁ ἡγούμενος τοῦ λόγου)
Lit., the leader in discourse. Barnabas was called Jupiter, possibly because his personal appearance was more imposing than Paul's (see 2Co 10:1, 2Co 10:10), and also because Jupiter and Mercury were commonly represented as companions in their visits to earth.