Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Acts 1:24

Κύριε καρδιογνῶστα … ὃν ἐξελέξω. The words may well have been addressed to Christ: St. Peter had just spoken of Him as the Lord, his own experience and that of his fellow-disciples must have taught him that Jesus was One Who knew the hearts of all men (John 2:25; John 21:17), and he had heard his Master's claim to have chosen the Apostles (cf. Luke 6:13; Luke 5:2 above, where the same verb is used). On the other hand Wendt regards as decisive against this view that St. Peter himself in Acts 15:7 says ἐξελέξατο ὁ θεός and then in Acts 1:8 calls God καρδιογνώστης (cf. Jeremiah 17:10, where Jehovah is said to search the heart). But the passage in Acts 15 is much too general in its reference to consider it decisive against any special prerogative ascribed to Jesus here (viz., the choice of His own Apostles), and the references to 2 Corinthians 1:1; Ephesians 2:1, where St. Paul refers his Apostleship to God, may be fairly met by Acts 9:17; Acts 26:16. It is quite true that in Acts 4:29 Κύριε is used in prayer plainly addressed to the Lord Jehovah, but it is equally certain that prayer was directed to Christ in the earliest days of the Church (Zahn, Skizzen aus dem Leben der alten Kirche, pp. 1 38 and notes), see also below on Acts 2:21 (and cf. 1 Thessalonians 3:11-12, and 2 Thessalonians 2:16; Archbishop of Armagh in Speaker's Commentary, iii., 690). ἀνάδειξον : in Luke 10:1 the only other passage in the N.T. where the word is used, it is applied to our Lord's appointment of the Seventy, and is rendered “appointed,” A. and R.V. But here R.V. renders “show” as A.V. (Rendall, “appoint”). The verb however may be used in the sense of showing forth or clearly, and hence to proclaim, especially a person's appointment to an office (cf. the noun ἀνάδειξις also used by St. Luke only in his Gospel, Luke 1:80); cf. for the former meaning, Malachi 2:8; Malachi 2:8; cf. 2Ma 5:6, and for the latter, 2 Macc. 9:14, 23, 35; 10:11; 14:12, 26; 1Es 1:35; 1Es 8:23; so too the use of the word in Polybius and Plutarch (see Grimm-Thayer, sub v., and Weiss, in loco).

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Acts 1:24

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