Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Acts 21:38

οὐκ ἄρα σὺ εἶ, thou art not then (as I supposed thee to be). Probably St Paul had addressed him in Greek already.

ὁ Αἰγύπτιος, the Egyptian. The person to whom allusion is here made was a sufficiently formidable character, if we only reckon his followers at four thousand desperadoes. Josephus (Ant. xx. 8. 6; Bell. J. II. 13. 5) tells how he was one of many impostors of the time, and that when Felix was governor he came to Jerusalem, gave himself out as a prophet, gathered the people to the Mount of Olives in number about 30,000, telling them that at his word the walls of Jerusalem would fall down, and they could then march into the city. Felix with the Roman soldiers went out against him. The impostor and a part of his adherents fled, but a very large number were killed and others taken prisoners. The narrative of Josephus does not accord with the account of St Luke, but if the former be correct, we may well suppose that the numbers and the occasion spoken of by the chief captain relate to an event anterior to that great gathering on the Mount of Olives. The fame of the impostor may have grown; indeed, must have done so before he could collect the number of adherents of which Josephus speaks.

ἀναστατώσας καὶ ἐξαγαγών, who stirred up to sedition and led forth. ἀναστατόω is found, beside here, in Acts 17:6; Galatians 5:12, and is always active. So ἄνδρας must be governed by both these verbs, and not, as in A.V., by the latter only.

τῶν σικαρίων, of the assassins. σικάριοι is a word derived from the Latin sica = a dagger, and imported into Greek. Josephus (B. J. II. 13. 3) in an account of the lawless bands which infested Judæa in these times, says (after relating how a notorious robber named Eleazar had been taken with his followers and sent in chains to Rome), ‘But when the country was thus cleared there sprang up another kind of plunderers in Jerusalem called Sicarii. They kill men by daylight in the midst of the city. Particularly at the feasts they mix with the crowd, carrying small daggers hid under their clothes. With these they wound their adversaries, and when they have fallen the murderers mix with the crowd and join in the outcry against the crime. Thus they passed unsuspected for a long time. One of their earliest victims was Jonathan the high priest.’ For further notices of the Sicarii cf. Josephus B. J. II. 17. 6 and Ant. XX. 8. 10.

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Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Acts 21:38

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