Acts 20:12

ἤγαγον : the subject must be supplied; probably those who had attended to the boy, and who, now that he was sufficiently recovered, brought him back to the room. Rendall thinks that the expression means that they took the lad home after the assembly was over. The comfort is derived from the recovery of the boy, as is indicated by ζῶντα, and it is forced to refer it to the consolation which they received from the boy's presence, as a proof which the Apostle had left behind him of divine and miraculous help (so Wendt, Weiss); see also, critical note, and Ramsay, St. Paul, p. 291. ζῶντα : the word is pointless unless on the supposition that the accident had been fatal. It is in fact impossible to deny that a miracle is intended to be narrated; otherwise the introduction of the whole story is meaningless, as Overbeck insists against Baur and Renan. The word νεκρός, the action of Paul, the word ζῶντα all point to an actual death, whilst the vivid details in the narrative also indicate the presence of an eye-witness as an informant. Schneckenburger has shown exhaustively, as Zeller admits, that an actual raising of the dead is intended; but we are asked to see in the narrative only an attempt to set off the raising of Eutychus against the raising of Tabitha at Joppa, a parallel between Paul and Peter; so Baur, and recently Overbeck and Weizsäcker. But the conclusion of Overbeck is disappointing in face of the fact that he dwells (p. 333) most pointedly upon the difference between the narrative here and in Acts 9:36 how in this latter case we have the expectation of the miracle emphasised, whilst here it is entirely wanting; how too the laudatory description of Tabitha may be contrasted with the simple mention of the name, Eutychus here. οὐ μετρίως : often in Plutarch, cf. 2Ma 15:38. On Luke's use of οὐ with an adjective, to express the opposite, see Lekebusch, Apostelgeschichte, p. 62; Klostermann, Vindiciæ Lucanæ, p. 52; and four times in “We” sections (twelve times in rest of Acts, rare in rest of N.T.), Acts 20:12; Acts 27:14; Acts 27:20; Acts 28:2; Hawkins, Horæ Synopticæ, p. 153.