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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - Acts 20:9 - 20:9
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Sat (kathezomenos). Sitting (present middle participle describing his posture).
In the window (epi tēs thuridos). Old word diminutive from thura, door, a little door. Latticed window (no glass) opened because of the heat from the lamps and the crowd. Our window was once spelt windore (Hudibras), perhaps from the wrong idea that it was derived from wind and door. Eutychus (a common slave name) was sitting on (epi) the window sill. Ahaziah “fell down through a lattice in his upper chamber” (2Ki 1:2). In the N.T. thuris only here and 2Co 11:33 (dia thuridos) through which Paul was let down through the wall in Damascus.
Borne down with deep sleep (katapheromenos hupnōi bathei). Present passive participle of katapherō, to bear down, and followed by instrumental case (hupnōi). Describes the gradual process of going into deep sleep. Great medical writers use bathus with hupnos as we do today (deep sleep). D here has basei (heavy) for bathei (deep).
As Paul discoursed yet longer (dialegomenou tou Paulou epi pleion). Genitive absolute of present middle participle of dialegomai (cf. Act 20:7). with epi pleion. Eutychus struggled bravely to keep awake, vainly hoping that Paul would finish. But he went on “for more.”
Being born down by his sleep (katenechtheis apo tou hupnou). First aorist (effective) passive showing the final result of the process described by katapheromenos, finally overcome as a result of (apo) the (note article tou) sleep (ablative case). These four participles (kathezomenos, katapheromenos, dialegomenou, katenechtheis) have no connectives, but are distinguished clearly by case and tense. The difference between the present katapheromenos and the aorist katenechtheis of the same verb is marked.
Fell down (epesen katō). Effective aorist active indicative of piptō with the adverb katō, though katapiptō (compound verb) could have been used (Act 26:14; Act 28:6). Hobart (Medical Language of St. Luke) thinks that Luke shows a physician’s interest in the causes of the drowsiness of Eutychus (the heat, the crowd, the smell of the lamps, the late hour, the long discourse). Cf. Luk 22:45.
From the third story (apo tou tristegou). From treis (three) and stegē (roof), adjective tristegos having three roofs.
Was taken up dead (ērthē nekros). First aorist passive indicative of airō. Luke does not say hōs (as) or hōsei (Mar 9:26 as if). The people considered him dead and Luke the physician seems to agree with that view.