Acts 4:17

ἐπὶ πλεῖον may be taken as = latius (2 Timothy 2:16; 2 Timothy 3:9) or = diutius (Acts 20:9; Acts 24:4), but the context favours the former. The phrase is quite classical, and it occurs several times in LXX, cf. Wis 8:12; 3Ma 5:18. διανεμηθῇ : only here in N.T. but frequently used in classical writers in active and middle to divide into portions, to distribute, to divide among themselves here = lest it should spread abroad (or better perhaps in ([158])) It has been taken by some as if it had a parallel in ὡς γάγγραινα νομὴν ἕξει, 2 Timothy 2:17, and expressed that the report of the Apostles' teaching and power might spread and feed like a cancer (see Bengel, Blass, Zöckler, Rendall), but although νέμω in the middle voice (and possibly ἐπινέμω) could be so used, it is very doubtful how far διανέμω could be so applied. At the same time we may note that διανέμω is a word frequently used in medical writers, Hobart, Medical Language of St. Luke, pp. 196, 197, and that it, with the two other great medical words of similar import, διασπείρειν and ἀναδιδόναι, is peculiar to St. Luke. In the LXX διανέμω is only found once, Deuteronomy 29:26 (25), in its classical sense as a translation of the Hebrew חָלַק. ἀπειλῇ ἀπειλησώμεθα : if we retain the reading in T.R., the phrase is a common Hebraism, cf. Acts 5:28; Acts 23:14; Acts 2:17; Acts 2:30; Luke 22:15, cf. John 6:29; James 5:7, and from the LXX, Matthew 13:14; Matthew 15:4. The form of the Hebrew formula giving the notion of intenseness is rendered in A.V. by “straitly,” as by the revisers (who omit ἀπειλῇ here) in Acts 5:28. Similar expressions are common in the LXX, and also in the Apocrypha, cf. Sir 48:11, Jdt 6:4, and occasionally a similar formula is found in Greek authors, see especially Simcox, Language of the N. T., p. 83, and Blass, Grammatik des N. G., pp. 116, 117. ἐπὶ τῷ ὀνόματι : on the name, i.e., resting on, or with reference to, this name, as the basis of their teaching, Winer-Moulton, xlviii. c., cf. Acts 5:28, and Luke 24:47; Luke 9:48; Luke 21:8. The phrase has thus a force of its own, although it is apparently interchangeable with ἐν, Acts 4:10 (Simcox, see also Blass, in loco); Rendall takes it = “about the name of Jesus,” ἐπί being used as often with verbs of speech. τούτῳ : “quem nominare nolunt, Acts 5:28, vid. tamen 18,” Blass; (on the hatred of the Jews against the name of Jesus and their periphrastic titles for him, e.g., otho ha'ish, “that man,” “so and so,” see “Jesus Christ in the Talmud,” H. Laible, pp. 32, 33 (Streane)).

[158] R(omana), in Blass, a first rough copy of St. Luke.