Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Acts 7:23

ὡς, cf. Acts 1:10, Lucan. The exact age is not mentioned in O.T., but it was traditional (Weiss refers its mention to the reviser, perhaps introduced as a parallel to Acts 7:30). According to the tradition, which Stephen apparently followed, Moses lived forty years in Pharaoh's palace, but some accounts give twenty years; his dwelling in Midian occupied forty years, and he governed Israel for the same period, Acts 13:18. See Midrash Tanchuma on Exodus 2:6 (Wetstein, with other references, so too Lumby). ἐπληροῦτο, “but when he was well-nigh,” etc., R.V., lit [204] “when the age of forty years was being fulfilled to him” (imperf. tense), cf. Luke 21:24; Acts 2:1; Acts 9:23; Acts 24:27, and Acts 7:30 below; so repeatedly in LXX. ἀνέβη ἐπὶ τὴν καρδίαν αὐτοῦ, cf. 1 Corinthians 2:9 for the expression, probably taken from LXX, Isaiah 65:17, cf. Jeremiah 3:16; Jeremiah 32:35; Ezekiel 38:10, and 2 Kings 12:4. The phrase is an imitation of the Hebrew. Gesenius compares the phrase before us with Heb., Ezekiel 14:3-4; see also Viteau, Le Grec du N. T., p. 66 (1896). ἐπισκέψασθαι, cf. Luke 1:68; Luke 1:78; Luke 7:16, cf. Exodus 4:31, of God visiting His people by Moses and Aaron (Acts 15:14). In each of these passages the verb is used of a divine visitation, and it is so used by St. Luke only amongst N.T. writers, except Hebrews 2:6 = Psalms 8:5, LXX. It is used elsewhere in Matthew 25:36; Matthew 25:43; James 1:27; Acts 6:3; Acts 15:36 (cf. Judges 15:1). The word is used of visits paid to the sick, cf. Sir 7:35, and so in classical Greek (see Mayor on James 1:27), often in medical writings and in Plutarch (Grimm, sub v., and Kennedy, Sources of N. T. Greek, p. 105); mostly in the LXX, as always in the N.T., in good sense (Genesis 21:1; Psalms 8:4, Psalms 79:14, Sir 46:14, Jdt 8:33, but also with reference to divine punishment, Ps. 88:31, 32, Jeremiah 9:9; Jeremiah 9:25; Jeremiah 11:22; Jeremiah 34:8, etc.), cf. its use in Psalms of Solomon, where it is generally employed with reference to divine visitation, either for purposes of punishment or deliverance. In modern Greek = to visit, same sense as in LXX and N.T.; Kennedy, u. s., p. 155. For its old English sense of visit, as looking upon with kindness, Lumby compares Shaks., Rich. II., i., 3, 275: “All places that the eye of heaven visits ”. τοὺς ἀδελφοὺς αὐτοῦ : though in a king's palace, and far removed in one sense from his people, Moses remembers that he is an Israelite, and that he has brethren; while others forgot their brotherhood he reminded them of it: “motivum amoris quod Moses etiam aliis adhibuit Acts 7:26,” Bengel, cf. Exodus 2:10, and Hebrews 11:24-25.

[204] literal, literally.

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Acts 7:23

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