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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Acts 17:28 - 17:28
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28. ἐν αὐτῷ γὰρ ζῶμεν, for in Him we live, i.e. through or by Him. For ἐν in this sense, see below Act 17:31.
All our existence is through His care. He must therefore be near unto each of us.
καὶ κινούμεθα, and move. More literally, ‘are moved.’ The word does not refer to the motion of persons from place to place, but to those internal movements of the mind and spirit of which the outward actions are the effect. St Paul means that the feelings of men are acted on by God, who speaks to the heart through all nature if men will but hearken. This is the truth of which Pantheism is the caricature.
ὡς καί τινες τῶν καθ' ὑμᾶς ποιητῶν εἰρήκασιν, as certain of your own poets have said. The expression τῶν καθ' ὑμᾶς in place of the simpler pronoun is like νόμου τοῦ καθ' ὑμᾶς in Act 18:15. Cf. also Act 26:3. The words are found in Arâtus, Phaenomena, 5
τοῦ γὰρ καὶ γένος ἐσμέν, ὁ δ' ἤπιος ἀνθρώποισι
δεξιὰ σημαίνει.
They also occur in Cleanthes’ Hymn to Jupiter, 5. Arâtus was a native of Cilicia, and St Paul may in consequence be supposed to have known of his writings as of those of a fellow-countryman. By quoting from their own literature to the Athenians, St Paul illustrates his own declaration that in his labours ‘he became all things to all men.’ Such a quotation was also very well devised for arresting the attention of these cultivated hearers, and winning, it may be, some consideration for the speaker, as also being a man of culture.
τοῦ. Here the article has its original force, and is equivalent to a demonstrative pronoun. See Winer-Moulton, p. 129.