Acts 20:25

καὶ νῦν, see on Acts 20:22. οἶδα : no infallible presentiment or prophetic inspiration, but a personal conviction based on human probabilities, which was overruled by subsequent events. The word cannot fairly be taken to mean more than this, for in the same context the Apostle himself had distinctly disclaimed a full knowledge of the future, Acts 20:23. And if οἶδα is to be pressed here into a claim of infallible knowledge, it is difficult to see why it should not be also so pressed in Philippians 1:25, where the Apostle expresses his sure conviction πεποιθώς οἶδα of a release from his Roman imprisonment, cf. Acts 26:27 where Paul uses the same verb in expressing his firm persuasion of Agrippa's belief, but surely not any infallible knowledge of Agrippa's heart. For a full discussion of the word see amongst recent writers Steinmetz, Die zweite römische Gefangenschaft des Apostels Paulus, p. 14 ff. (1897); Zahn, Einleitung, i., p. 436. οὐκέτι ὄψεσθε : “shall no longer see,” see Rendall, whereas A. and R.V. rendering “no more,” οὐκέτι, give the impression that St. Paul definitely affirms that he would never return. Rendall compares Romans 15:23, but on the other hand Acts 8:39 seems to justify the usual rendering. The Apostle's increasing anxiety is quite natural when we remember how even in Corinth he had thought of his journey to Jerusalem with apprehension, Romans 15:30, Paley, Horæ Paulinæ, ii., 5. On the inference drawn by Blass from this passage as to the early date of Acts, see his remarks in loco, and Proleg., p. 3, and to the same effect, Salmon, Introd., p. 407, fifth edition. διῆλθον : the word taken in the sense of a missionary tour, see Acts 13:6, indicates that representatives not only of Ephesus but of other Churches were present, hence ὑμεῖς πάντες, διῆλθον κηρύσσων, coalescing into a single idea; the Apostle could not say διῆλθον ὑμᾶς, and so we have ἐν ὑμῖν substituted. If the word is Lucan it is also Pauline, and that too in this particular sense, cf. 1 Corinthians 16:5. κηρ. τὴν βασ.: if Lucan, also Pauline cf. Colossians 4:11. As our Lord had sent His first disciples to preach (κηρύσσειν) the kingdom of God, and as He Himself had done the same, Luke 8:1; Luke 9:2, we cannot doubt that St. Paul would lay claim to the same duty and privilege; in his first Epistle, 1 Thessalonians 2:12, as in his latest, 2 Timothy 4:18, the kingdom of God, its present and its future realisation, is present to his thoughts; in his first journey, Acts 14:22, no less than in his third it finds a place in his teaching and exhortation; in his first Epistle, 1 Thessalonians 2:9, as in his latest, 2Ti 1:11; 2 Timothy 4:17, he does the work of a herald, κῆρυξ. No less than five times in 1 Corinthians, one of the Epistles written during his stay at Ephesus, the phrase βασιλεία Θεοῦ occurs (it is not found at all in 2 Corinthians).