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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Acts 3:19 - 3:19
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
19. μετανοήσατε, repent; seeing how great your offence is, but yet that sin done in ignorance may be pardoned.
ἐπιστρέψατε. Literally, turn again, i.e. from the evil of your ways. So (Act 11:21) ‘a great number believed and turned unto the Lord.’ The phrase ‘be converted’ of the A.V. has received much augmentation of meaning since 1611.
ἐξαλειφθῆναι. A very common word in the LXX. for the blotting-out of offences. The idea is, they are written down, but may be erased. Cf. Jer 18:23, τὰς ἁμαρτίς αὐτῶν μὴ ἐξαλείψῃς. So Psalms 50 (51):1, 11, 108 (109):14; 2Ma 12:42.
ὅπως ἄν. These particles cannot be translated ‘when the times … shall come,’ but ‘that the times … may come.’ They indicate a purpose, the accomplishment of which still lies in doubt. So the Apostle’s argument is, Repent, that your sins may be blotted out, that in this way (i.e. by your penitence) the times of refreshing may come. ὅπως ἄν is rendered in this sense (Act 15:17), ‘That the residue of men might [better may] seek after the Lord.’ See also Luk 2:35.
καιροὶ ἀναψύξεως. Literally, ‘appointed times of refreshing.’ These God hath appointed and keeps in His own power, but the penitence of men can hasten them. They are called ‘times of refreshing,’ i.e. peace and blessedness, for the Apostle describes them afterwards as the coming of the Christ. But by the prophecies which he quotes he shews that the refreshing is for those only who repent (Act 3:23) and hear the prophet whom God sends. The anticipation of a speedy return of Christ from heaven was common among the first believers. St Peter here does not directly state this opinion, but we can see how current it was from St Paul’s Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, where he finds it necessary to warn the Christians of that Church against the disquiet which the immediate expectation of the second Advent was causing among them.
ἀνάψυξις is used in LXX. Exo 8:15 of the relief which Pharaoh felt when the plague of frogs was removed.