Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Acts 20:26

If we read διότι, critical note, we have a word which is not used by the other Evangelists, but three times in Luke's Gospel and five times in Acts; in each passage in Acts it is referred to Paul, Acts 13:35; Acts 18:10 (2), Acts 20:26; Acts 22:18, and it occurs nine or ten times in Paul's Epistles. On account of the Apostle's approaching departure, such a reckoning is demanded. μαρτύρομαι : only in Luke and Paul, and in both cases in Acts referred to Paul, here and in Acts 26:22; Galatians 5:3, Ephesians 4:17, 1 Thessalonians 2:12, “I protest,” properly “I call to witness,” but never = μαρτυρῶ in classical Greek; in Jdt 7:28 we have the fuller construction, of which this use of the dative here is a remnant, Lightfoot, Galatians 5:3. The verb occurs once more in 1Ma 2:56 (but [337] [338], al.). ἐν τῇ σήμερον ἡμερᾷ : Attic, τήμερον, i.e., ἡμ. with pronom. prefix (cf. Matthew 28:15 but ἡμέρας [W. H.]), the very day of my departure; the exact phrase occurs twice elsewhere, but both times in Paul's writings, 2 Corinthians 3:14, W. H., Romans 11:8 (quotation); “Hoc magnam declarandi vim habet,” Bengel. Several times in LXX, cf. Jos., Ant., xiii., 2, 3, found frequently in classical Greek. καθαρὸς ἀπὸ, cf. Acts 17:6, where a similar phrase is used by St. Paul; the adjective is found seven times in. St. Paul's Epistles, but only here and in Acts 17:6 in Luke's writings. In LXX, cf. Job 14:4; Proverbs 20:9, Tob 3:14, Susannah, ver 46; in Psalms of Solomon, 17:41, and, for the thought, Ezekiel 3:18-20. In classics for the most part with genitive, but in later Greek with ἀπό, see however Blass, Gram., p. 104, and instances from Demosthenes; and Deissmann for instances from papyri, Neue Bibelstudien, pp. 24, 48; Ramsay, “Greek of the Early Church,” etc.; Expository Times, December, 1898, p. 108. Only a Paul could say this with fitness; we could not dare to say it, Chrys., Hom., xliv.

[337] Codex Alexandrinus (sæc. v.), at the British Museum, published in photographic facsimile by Sir E. M. Thompson (1879).

[338] Codex Cryptoferratensis (sæc. vii.), a palimpsest fragment containing chap. Acts 11:9-19, edited by Cozza in 1867, and cited by Tischendorf.

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Acts 20:26

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