[00:00:00] Hello listeners, welcome to my podcast. We will continue from yesterday, Acts, A Commentary by E. M. Blaiklock. Additional Notes Acts 9, 1-31 A knotty historical problem is involved in the position of Aretas, see 2 Corinthians 11.32, and the sphere of jurisdiction in which Damascus lay at the time of the Jewish attack.
[00:00:28] It seems likely that the synagogue authorities took advantage of some change in local government which favoured their plot. In Jerusalem, history was repeated , with Paul ranged, ironically enough, against a group of Hellenistic Jews. These Hellenistic Jews, A5, Grecians, were those at whose instigation Stephen had been murdered.
[00:00:55] Lumbee remarks that the same word is used for Paul's disputing as was employed in the description of the controversies, 6-9, which Stephen's ministry occasioned. Nor is the verb found elsewhere in the book, but the attack is now reversed with Paul holding the initiative. The Grecians, disputed with Stephen. The superbly educated Pharisee disputes with them.
[00:01:23] Additional Notes 9, 2 Literally, if he should find any of the way. A note of contempt for the Christian's familiar quotation is in the phrase. It is, of course, a natural enough metaphor for a religion involving a code of moral conduct, and occurs in more than one language. Our way of life is, after all, identical.
[00:01:48] See 19, 1-3, 23-22, 4, 24-14-22, and compare 16, 17, 17, 25, 26, 2 Peter 9, 4. Commentators note the Hebrew form of vocative with its suggestion of well-remembered address.
[00:02:13] So, too, appropriately, in verse 17 and in 22, 7, 13, 26, 14. 9, 7 This does not contradict 22, G. The verb, to hear, in Greek, can govern an accusative, 22, 9, or a genitive, 9, 7.
[00:02:38] The genitive is partitive, and in itself conveys the idea that they did not apprehend the sound in its entirety. Hence the genitive at 9, 7. It was correct to use the accusative in the second context. The accusative signifies a complete domination of the object, and the company did not understand the purport of the words. Admittedly, this distinction is often blurred, but Luke is a careful writer.
[00:03:07] Moulton remarks of this passage, The fact that the maintenance of an old and well-known distinction between the accusative and genitive with a coer saves the author of Acts 9, 7, and 22, 9 from a patent self-contradiction should by itself be enough to make us recognize it for Luke and for other writers until it is proved wrong. 11, 7, 7 9, 7
[00:03:32] It is reasonably suggested that these three days were the occasion of the experiences of 2 Corinthians 12, 1-4, 9, 18. Commentators point out that Luke uses the term for scales employed by Hippocrates, and that the cognate verb is found in the rather horrible account of blindness and healing in the book of Tobit, 317, 11, 13.
[00:03:59] But surely there is nothing highly technical in the word, and the expression need not be literal. There fell, as it had been, scales, and Luke was certainly speaking metaphorically. 9, 19. Certain days is a Lucan formula for a very brief period of time. 10, 48, 15, 36, 16, 12, 24, 24, 25, 13.
[00:04:29] Thanks for listening. We will continue tomorrow.