Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Acts 5:19

ἄγγελος δὲ Κ.: the narrative must be accepted or rejected as it stands. As Wendt, following Zeller in earlier days, candidly admits, every attempt to explain the narrative by referring the release of the prisoners to some natural event, such as an earthquake or lightning, or to some friendly disposed person, who with the assistance of the gaoler opened the prison doors, and who was mistaken by the Apostles for an angel in the darkness and excitement of the night, is shattered at once against the plain meaning of the text. Nor can it be deemed satisfactory to believe that St. Luke has unconsciously given us two narratives of the liberation of St. Peter, here and in 12, and that the former is merely an echo of the later deliverance transferred to an earlier date (Weiss, Sorof, Holtzmann). But St. Luke had the best means of knowing accurately the events narrated in 12 from John Mark (see below on chap. 12, and Ramsay, St. Paul, etc., p. 385), Introd., p. 17, and there is no ground whatever for supposing that 12 is simply an embellished version of this former incident. Attempts have been made to show that St. Luke introduces the same doubling of narratives in his Gospel (Wendt, Holtzmann), e.g., the sending forth of the disciples in Acts 9:3 and Acts 10:1, but the former chapter is concerned with the mission of the Twelve, and the latter with that of the Seventy. Further objections have been made as to the uselessness of the miracle the disciples are found, to be imprisoned again! But not only was the miracle a source of fresh strength and faith to the disciples, but as Hilgenfeld notes their release can scarcely be described as purposeless, since it called forth a public transgression of the command of silence imposed upon the two chief Apostles, Acts 4:17-21. Moreover, the deliverance was another indication to the Sadducees, if they would have accepted it, that it was useless for them to attempt to stay the movement. “Quis ergo usus angeli?” asks Blass; and he answers: “Sed est aliquis: augetur enim apostolorum audacia (Acts 5:21), tum ira adversariorum magis accenditur; nihilominus Deus suos perire non patitur”. That the Sadducees should ignore the miracle (Acts 5:28) is surely not strange, although it may well have influenced their subsequent deliberations; that the action of the Sadducees should now be more coercive than on the former occasion was only natural on the part of men who feared that vengeance would be taken on them for the death of Jesus by an uprising of the people (Acts 5:28; Acts 5:26). διὰ νυκτὸς = νυκτός, νύκτωρ (cf. Luke 2:8) in classical Greek. The phrase is used four times by St. Luke in Acts, cf. Acts 16:19; Acts 17:10; Acts 23:31, and cf. Luke 5:5 (and Acts 9:37,, διὰ τῆς ἡμέρας): nowhere else in N.T. In all the passages Meyer thinks that the expression means throughout the night, but such a meaning would be inconsistent with the context at all events here and in Acts 16:19; and Acts 17:10 is doubtful. See Blass, Grammatik des N. G., p. 129, “by night” (nachts). Simcox speaks of this expression in Acts as an “almost adverbial phrase,” Language of N. T., p. 140.

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Acts 5:19

Old Testament

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