Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Acts 14:20 - 14:20

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Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Acts 14:20 - 14:20


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20. κυκλωσάντων δὲ τῶν μαθητῶν αὐτόν, but as the disciples stood round about him. Among this ring of disciples we may well believe that the young Timothy was included. Braving all danger that might attend on their act, the believers at Lystra gathered about what they, as well as his assailants, deemed the corpse of their teacher, and their sorrowing thoughts were perhaps concerned how they might procure for it reverent burial.

ἀναστὰς εἰσῆλθεν εἰς τὴν πόλιν, he rose up and came into the city. The word ἀναστάς conveys the impression that this was a resurrection from the dead, and that the restoration of the Apostle, and his immediate exhibition of vigour, and boldness to enter again into the city, was the effect of a miracle. That one stoned and left for dead by a savage mob should revive and go about as if nothing had befallen him must have been a still more striking evidence of the mighty power of God present with these teachers than what the people had seen before in the restoration of the cripple.

On the zeal of the Apostle and his readiness to return to the scene of his danger, Chrysostom remarks οὐδαμοῦ δὲ λέγει ὅτι ὑπέστρεψαν χαίροντες ὅτι σημεῖα ἐποίησαν, ἀλλ' ὅτι κατηξιώθησαν ὑπὲρ τοῦ ὀνόματος αὐτοῦ ἀτιμασθῆναι.

καὶ τῇ ἐπαύριον ἐξῆλθεν, and the next day he departed. Having been sheltered for the night in the house of some disciple, perhaps in that of Eunice and Lois, the mother and grandmother of Timothy, of whose faith the Apostle speaks (2Ti 1:5) as though he had been witness of its fruits in their lives.

σὺν τῷ Βαρνάβᾳ εἰς Δερβήν, with Barnabas to Derbe. Barnabas, it seems, had not been an object of jealousy to the Jews. His power, though great as the ‘son of exhortation or consolation,’ was not so demonstrative as that of his fellow Apostle. Derbe, the town to which the Apostles next went, was to the east of Lystra. We have no mention of any other places in Lycaonia than these two as visited by Paul and Barnabas, but from Act 14:6 we gather that their preaching was extended to other parts of the surrounding country.