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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Acts 1:13 - 1:13
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
13. εἰσῆλθον, they were come in, i.e. entered into Jerusalem, coming from the open country where the Ascension had taken place.
εἰς τὸ ὑπερῷον, into the upper room. The occurrence of the article is probably because the room was the same which had been used before for the Last Supper (Mar 14:15; Luk 22:12). The noun is not the same here as in those passages, but it seems most probable that the disciples, strangers in Jerusalem, when they had shortly before found one such room which could be obtained, would hardly seek after another. The passover chamber moreover would be hallowed to them by what happened at the Last Supper. In the next clause καταμένοντες seems to imply that the Twelve had taken possession of the room while awaiting the fulfilment of the promise which Jesus had made to them.
The names of the Eleven are probably here recited again, though they had been given to Theophilus in the Gospel, that it might be on record, that though all of them at the arrest and trial forsook their Master, this was done by all but Judas only through fleshly weakness not through defection of heart. It may also be that their names are here given at the outset of the Acts, that it may be intimated thus, that though the separate works of each man will not be chronicled in these fragmentary ‘Acts of Apostles,’ yet all alike took their part in the labour which their Master had appointed for them.
Ἰάκωβος Ἀλφαίου … Ἰούδας Ἰακώβου. The A.V. renders these two identical constructions in different ways, making James the son of Alphæus, but Judas the brother of James. There is authority to be found for both renderings, though many more instances occur where the ellipse is the word son, than where it is brother. Judas is made to be the brother of James here, because in Jud 1:1 that Judas calls himself brother of James. But we cannot be sure that they were the same person, and in the list of the Twelve it is hardly conceivable that two different words were meant to be supplied with names which stand in close juxtaposition. It is better therefore to render Judas the son of James, for which insertion we have more abundant authority.
Σίμων ὑ Ζηλωτής. Ζηλωτής is a Greek rendering of the Hebrew word which is represented by Κανανίτης (Mat 10:4; Mar 3:18). That word signifies one who is very zealous for his opinions or his party, and was applied in our Lord’s time to those Jews who were specially strict in their observance of the Mosaic ritual.