Acts 5:16

εἰς omitted with אAB. The Vulg. has no preposition.

16. τὸ πλῆθος κ.τ.λ., the multitude of the cities round about. The word πόλις is not unfrequently used of places which are comparatively small. So of Nazareth (Matthew 2:23), Nain (Luke 7:11) and Arimathea (Luke 23:51). With τῶν πέριξ πόλεων cf. Acta Andr. et Matth. Apocr. 26, οὓς ὁ μακάριος ἐξέβαλεν ἐκ τῶν πέριξ χωρῶν.

The preposition being omitted before Ἱερουσαλήμ, it becomes the accusative under the government of συνήρχετο, a verb with the sense of motion to a place.

ὀχλουμένους, troubled, vexed. The word is found also Luke 6:18, and nowhere else in N.T. As it occurs often in the works of Greek medical writers, it points to Luke as having been a physician. Cf. for its use concerning evil spirits, Tob 6:7, ἐάν τινα ὀχλῇ δαιμόνιον ἢ πνεῦμα πονηρόν, ταῦτα δεῖ καπνίσαι ἐνώπιον�.

ὑπὸ πνευμάτων�, by unclean spirits. It was recognized that the power of the Apostles extended not only to physical, but also to spiritual maladies. Indeed the whole history being of a supernatural character, the cures wrought on ordinary maladies were of the nature of signs and wonders, and spake of a power which was not human. The power here displayed is that which in Christ’s own life was confessed to be that of the Son of God (Luke 4:40-41).

Unclean spirits are those which are called wicked (πονηρά) in other parts of the New Testament (Matthew 12:45, &c.); and the former epithet is probably applied to them because an unclean life had made the afflicted man the subject of this possession, or because in his state of frenzy he wandered into places where he would incur ceremonial defilement, as the demoniac who had his dwelling among the tombs (Mark 5:3); the latter adjective indicates the evil effects so often patent in the condition of the afflicted person, as loss of speech, hearing and other senses, the belief of the Jews being that spirits afflicted with such maladies were the cause of the like affliction in human beings.

ἅπαντες, all of them. For it was only a complete faith which had prompted the bringing them unto the Apostles, and to such faith all things had been promised by Christ (Mark 9:23).