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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - Acts 21:38 - 21:38
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Art thou not (οὐκ ἄρα οὺ εἶ)
Indicating the officer's surprised recognition of his own mistake. “Thou art not, then, as I supposed.” Rev. properly adds then (ἄρα).
The Egyptian
A false prophet, who, in the reign of Nero, when Felix was governor of Judaea, collected a multitude of thirty thousand, whom he led from the wilderness to the Mount of Olives, saying that the walls of Jerusalem would fall down at his command and give them free entrance to the city. Felix with an army dispersed the multitude, and the Egyptian himself escaped. There is a discrepancy in the number of followers as stated by Josephus (80,000) and as stated by the commandant here (4,000). It is quite possible, however, that Josephus alludes to the whole rabble, while Lysias is referring only to the armed followers.
Madest an uproar
Better, as Rev., stirred up to sedition. The rendering of the A. V. is too vague. The verb means to unsettle or upset, and the true idea is given in the A. V. of Act 17:6, have turned the world upside down. Compare Gal 5:12, and kindred words in Mar 15:7; Luk 23:19.
That were murderers (τῶν σικαρίων)
The A. V. is too general, and overlooks the force of the article, which shows that the word refers to a class. Rev., rightly, the assassins. The word, which occurs only here, and notably on the lips of a Roman officer, is one of those Latin words which “followed the Roman domination even into those Eastern provinces of the empire which, unlike those of the West, had refused to be Latinized, but still retained their own language” (Trench, “Synonyms”). The Sicarii were so called from the weapon which they used - the sica, or short, curved dagger. Josephus says: “There sprang up in Jerusalem another description of robbers called Sikars, who, under the broad light of day, and in the very heart of the city, assassinated men; chiefly at the festivals, however, when, mixing among the crowd, with daggers concealed under their cloaks, they stabbed those with whom they were at variance. When they fell, the murderers joined in the general expressions of indignation, and by this plausible proceeding remained undetected” (“Jewish War,” c. xiii.). The general New Testament term for murderer is φονεύς (see Mat 22:7; Act 3:14; Act 28:4, etc.).