Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Acts 17:11 - 17:11
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
11. εὐγενέστεροι, more noble, εὐγενής is applied first to nobility of birth; but its secondary sense is, as here, nobility of character. The latter ought to be a consequence of the former. Cf. 2Ma 14:42 εὐγενῶς θέλων ἀποθανεῖν, wishing to die nobly. Also see 2Ma 10:13.
ἐδέξαντο τὸν λόγον, they received the word, i.e. the word published to them as the word of God. It was the same teaching which had been given to the Jews in Thessalonica. This we see because the Berœans go to the O.T. Scriptures to examine into the truth of what they hear. Here we have a noteworthy instance of the right of private judgment. Even an Apostle’s word is not to be taken for granted. The noble Berœans were ready to listen, and then diligent to examine into the grounds of what was said.
ἀνακρίνοντες τὰς γραφάς, searching the Scriptures. This is a different verb from that so rendered in Joh 5:39, which is ἐρευνᾶν. ἀνακρίνειν has the sense of examining and sifting evidence. It was used in Attic law of the steps taken by the lawyers to see whether an action would lie. It is used by the LXX. 1Sa 20:12, where our A.V. renders ‘when I have sounded [Heb. searched] my father,’ also in Susanna 51 of Daniel’s examination of the elders.
εἰ ἔχοι ταῦτα οὕτως, whether those things were so. The optative mood implies that they had conceived the possibility in their minds, but still would examine before accepting what was said. Cf. Winer-Moulton, p. 364.