Acts 1:20

The quotation is twofold, the first part from Psalms 69:26 (LXX, 68); in the LXX we have αὐτῶν, changed here into αὐτοῦ with reference to Judas, whilst ἐν τοῖς σκηνώμασιν is omitted and the words ἐν αὐτῇ, referring to ἔπαυλις, are added. The omission would make the application of the words more general than in the original, which related to the desolation of the encampment and tents of a nomadic tribe. The other part of the quotation is verbatim from Psalms 108:8 (109), called by the ancients the Iscariot Psalm. With the exception of Psalms 22, no Psalm is more frequently quoted in the N.T. than 69; cf. Psalms 108:9 with John 2:17; Psalms 108:21 with Matthew 27:34, and with John 19:28; Psalms 108:22-23 with Romans 11:9-10; and Psalms 108:9 with Romans 15:3. In these Psalms, as in the twenty-second Psalm, we see how the history of prophets and holy men of old, of a David or a Jeremiah, was typical of the history of the Son of man made perfect through suffering, and we know how our Lord Himself saw the fulfilment of the words of the suffering Psalmist Psalms 41:9) in the tragic events of His own life (John 13:18). So too St. Peter in the recent miserable end of the traitor sees another evidence, not only of the general truth, which the Psalmists learnt through suffering, that God rewarded His servants and that confusion awaited the unrighteous, but also another fulfilment in the case of Judas of the doom which the Psalmists of old had invoked upon the persecutors of the faithful servants of God. But we are not called upon to regard Psalms 109 as the Iscariot Psalm in all its details (see Perowne, Psalms, p. 538 (smaller edition)), or to forget, as Delitzsch reminds us, that the spirit of Elias is not that of the N.T. St. Peter, although he must have regarded the crime of Judas as a crime without a parallel, does not dwell upon his punishment, but passes at once to the duty incumbent upon the infant Church in view of the vacant Apostleship. ἔπαυλις : by many commentators, both ancient and modern (Chrys., Oecum., so too Nösgen, Overbeck, Wendt, Blass, Holtzmann, Zöckler, Jüngst), this is referred to the χωρίον, which was rendered desolate by the death of Judas in it, on the ground that γάρ thus maintains its evident relation to what precedes. But if the two preceding verses are inserted by St. Luke, and form no part of St. Peter's words, it would seem that ἔπαυλις must be regarded as parallel to ἐπισκοπή in the second quotation. ἐπισκοπὴν : “his office,” R.V. (“overseership,” margin), so for the same word in LXX, Psalms 109:8, from which the quotation is made. In the LXX the word is used, Numbers 4:16, for the charge of the tabernacle. St. Peter uses the word ἐπίσκοπος in 1 Peter 2:25, and it is significant that there the translators of 1611 maintain the use of the word “bishop,” as here “bishoprick” (so R.V., “overseer,” margin), whilst they use “overseer” and “oversight” (ἐπισκοπή), Acts 20:28 and 1 Peter 5:2, where the reference is to the function of the elders or presbyters. The word ἐπισκοπή, of course, could not have its later ecclesiastical force, but the Apostolic office of Judas might well be described as one of oversight, and care of others; and it is significant that it is so described, and not only as a διακονία (see below on Acts 1:25, and on ἐπίσκοπος, Acts 20:28, note): “St. Peter would not have quoted the Psalm containing the expression ἐπισκοπή unless he had instinctively felt the word to be applicable to Judas' position” (Canon Gore in Guardian, 16th March, 1898).