Acts 3:7

πιάσας, cf. Acts 12:4 : so in LXX, Song of Solomon 2:15, Sir 23:21, A. al. χειρὸς very similar to, if not exactly, a partitive genitive, found after verbs of touching, etc., inasmuch as the touching affects only a part of the object (Mark 5:30), and so too often after verbs of taking hold of, the part or the limit grasped is put in the genitive, Mark 5:41 (accusative being used when the whole person is seized, Matthew 14:3), Blass, Grammatik des N. G., p. 100, cf. classical use in Eurip., Hec., 523. The meaning of πιάζω in N.T. and in the LXX has passed into modern Greek = πιάνω = seize, apprehend (Kennedy). For a similar use see also 2 Corinthians 11:32; Revelation 19:20, and John 7:30; John 7:32-33; John 7:44; John 8:20; John 10:39; John 11:57; John 21:3; John 21:10. παραχρῆμα, i.e., παρὰ τὸ χρῆμα, forthwith, immediately, auf der Stelle, on the spot, specially characteristic of St. Luke, both in Gospel and Acts (cf. εὐθύς of St. Mark). It is found no less than ten times in the Gospel, and six to seven times in Acts, elsewhere in N.T. only twice, Matthew 21:19-20; several times in LXX, Wis 18:17, Tob 8:3,., 2Ma 4:34; 2Ma 4:38, etc., 4Ma 14:9, Bel and the Dragon, ver. 39, 42, Theod., and in Numbers 6:9; Numbers 12:4, [138] [139] [140]., Isaiah 29:5, for Hebrew, פִּתְאֹם; frequent in Attic prose; see also Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, pp. 22, 29. But as the word is so manifestly characteristic of St. Luke it is noteworthy that in the large majority of instances it is employed by him in connection with miracles of healing or the infliction of disease and death, and this frequency of use and application may be paralleled by the constant employment of the word in an analogous way in medical writers; see, e.g., Hobart, Medical Language of St. Luke, and instances in Hippocrates, Galen, Dioscorides. ἐστερεώθησαν : στερεόω = to make firm or solid; it cannot by any means be regarded only as a technical medical term, but as a matter of fact it was often employed in medical language (so also the adjective στερεός), and this use of the word makes it a natural one for a medical man to employ here, especially in connection with βάσεις and σφυρά. It is used only by St. Luke in the N.T. (Acts 3:16 and Acts 16:5), but very frequently in the LXX. The nearest approach to a medical use of the word is given perhaps by Wetstein, in loco, Xen., Pæd., viii. αἱ βάσεις, “the feet” (βαίνω). The word is constantly used in LXX, but for the most part in the sense of something upon which a thing may rest, but it is found in the same sense as here in Wis 13:18; cf. also Jos., Ant., vii., 3, 5, so in Plato, Timæus, 92, A. It was in frequent use amongst medical men, and its employment here, and here only in the N.T., with the mention of the other details, e.g., the more precise σφυρά, “anklebones,” also only found in this one passage in N.T., has been justly held to point to the technical description of a medical man; see not only Hobart, p. 34 ff., u. s., and Belcher's Miracles of Healing, p. 41, but Bengel, Zöckler, Rendall, Zahn.

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

[139] Codex Vaticanus (sæc. iv.), published in photographic facsimile in 1889 under the care of the Abbate Cozza-Luzi.

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