Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Acts 26:17

ἐξαιρούμενός σε : “delivering,” A. and R.V. Vulgate, eripiens, and so the word is elsewhere rendered in N.T., cf. Acts 7:10; Acts 7:34; Acts 12:11; Acts 23:27; Galatians 1:4, and below, Acts 26:22; so very frequently in LXX (although twice in the sense below, Job 36:21; Isaiah 48:10). It may be called a Lucan-Pauline word (only twice elsewhere in N.T.; in St.Matthew 5:29; Matthew 18:9, but in an entirely different signification). Blass renders it as above, and points out that there is no reason for rendering it “choosing” in this one passage, a sense which is not at all fitted to the context; for the language cf. 1 Chronicles 16:35; Jeremiah 1:8, so Wendt (1899, but in the sense below previously), Weiss, Felten, Hackett, Bethge, Knabenbauer. It is no objection to say that Paul was not delivered, but was persecuted all his life long, for he was delivered in the sense of deliverance to proclaim the message for which he was sent as an Apostle. On the other hand Overbeck, Rendall, Page, so C. and H. take it in the sense of “choosing,” cf. Acts 9:15, σκεῦος ἐκλογῆς. Grimm-Thayer is doubtful. Rendall urges that the word cannot mean “delivering” without some phrase such as ἐκ χειρός, as common in the LXX, but cf. on the other hand LXX, Judges 10:15; Judges 18:28 A, Psalms 30:2; Psalms 49:15; Hosea 5:14, etc. But how could Paul be said to be chosen ἐξ ἐθνῶν ? The phrase would certainly sound strange to him as a description of his own position. Rendall also objects that in 1 Chronicles 16:35 the word means to gather the scattered exiles from among the heathen as the context shows, but the Hebrew verb נָצַל means to deliver, and is so rendered, l. c., in A. and R. V. It is also urged that λαός is always the name of honour, and that elsewhere the enemies of the Apostle were named Ἰουδαῖοι; but not only is the collocation “the people and the Gentiles” a common one, cf. Acts 26:23; Romans 15:10, but λαός is used of the unbelieving Jews in describing hostility to the Gospel, cf. Acts 4:27; Acts 12:4. Agrippa would understand the distinction between λαός and ἔθνη. ἐγὼ “denotat auctoritatem mittentis,” Bengel. ἀποστέλλω : Paul receives his Apostolic commission direct from Christ as much as the Twelve; Galatians 1:1; Galatians 1:16-17; Romans 1:5 (Matthew 10:16; John 20:21-23); cf. Acts 1:25.

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Acts 26:17

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