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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - Acts 17:27 - 17:27
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
That they should seek God (Zētein ton theon). Infinitive (present active) of purpose again. Seek him, not turn away from him as the nations had done (Rom 1:18-32).
If haply they might feel after him (ei ara geō psēlaphēseian auton). First aorist active (Aeolic form) optative of psēlaphaō, old verb from psaō, to touch. So used by the Risen Jesus in his challenge to the disciples (Luk 24:39), by the Apostle John of his personal contact with Jesus (1Jo 1:1), of the contact with Mount Sinai (Heb 12:18). Here it pictures the blind groping of the darkened heathen mind after God to “find him” (heuroien, second aorist active optative) whom they had lost. One knows what it is in a darkened room to feel along the walls for the door (Deu 28:29; Job 5:14; Job 12:25; Isa 59:10). Helen Keller, when told of God, said that she knew of him already, groping in the dark after him. The optative here with ei is due to the condition of the fourth class (undetermined, but with vague hope of being determined) with aim also present (Robertson, Grammar, p. 1021). Note also ara geō the inferential particle ara with the delicate intensive particle geō.
Though he is not far from each one of us (kai geō ou makran apo henos hekastou hēmōn huparchonta). More exactly with B L (kai geō instead of kaitoi or kaitoi geō), “and yet being not far from each one of us,” a direct statement rather than a concessive one. The participle huparchonta agrees with auton and the negative ou rather than the usual me with the participle makes an emphatic negative. Note also the intensive particle geō.