Robertson Word Pictures - Acts 13:10 - 13:10

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Robertson Word Pictures - Acts 13:10 - 13:10


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

Of all guile (pantos dolou). From delō, to catch with bait, old word, already seen in Mat 26:4; Mar 7:22; Mar 14:1. Paul denounces Elymas as a trickster.

All villainy (pāsēs rhāidiourgias). Late compound from rhāidiourgos (rhāidios, easy, facile, ergon, deed, one who does a thing adroitly and with ease). So levity in Xenophon and unscrupulousness in Polybius, Plutarch, and the papyri. Only here in the N.T., though the kindred word rhāidiourgēma occurs in Act 18:14. With deadly accuracy Paul pictured this slick rascal.

Thou son of the devil (huie diabolou). Damning phrase like that used by Jesus of the Pharisees in Joh 8:44, a slanderer like the diabolos. This use of son (huios) for characteristic occurs in Act 3:25; Act 4:36, a common Hebrew idiom, and may be used purposely by Paul in contrast with the name Barjesus (son of Jesus) that Elymas bore (Act 13:6).

Enemy of all righteousness (echthre pāsēs dikaiosunēs). Personal enemy to all justice, sums up all the rest. Note triple use of “all” (pantos, pāsēs, pāsēs), total depravity in every sense.

Wilt thou not cease? (ou pausēi). An impatient rhetorical question, almost volitive in force (Robertson, Grammar, p. 874). Note ou, not mē,

To pervert (diastrephōn). Present active participle describing the actual work of Elymas as a perverter or distorter (see Act 13:8). More exactly, Wilt thou not cease perverting?

The right ways of the Lord (tas hodous tou kuriou tas eutheias). The ways of the Lord the straight ones as opposed to the crooked ways of men (Isa 40:4; Isa 42:16; Luk 3:5). The task of John the Baptist as of all prophets and preachers is to make crooked paths straight and to get men to walk in them. This false prophet was making even the Lord’s straight ways crooked. Elymas has many successors.