Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Acts 1:6

ἠρώτων with אABC. The shorter form was most likely the earlier. The same may be said too of βλέποντες in Acts 1:11.

6. εἰ. This conjunction, at first used after some verb on which it was dependent, at last came to be employed in questions of an independent form. We may suppose that originally some such expression as ‘Tell us’ was understood before the ‘if,’ but in translating this sentence the Vulgate merely gives ‘Domine, si restitues’ … and the Latin si in Jerome’s time had become a particle of direct interrogation. For other examples of εἰ thus used cf. Acts 19:2; Acts 21:37; Acts 22:25.

βασιλείαν. Though they were being taught the nature of the kingdom of God, yet their minds were even still far from open, and ran on the thought of a temporal kingdom over Israel to be established by Jesus. The change from the spirit which dictated the question in this verse, to that in which St Peter (Acts 2:38-39) preached repentance and forgiveness to all whom the Lord should call, is one of the greatest evidences of the miracle of Pentecost. Such changes are only wrought from above.

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Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Acts 1:6

Old Testament

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