Acts 14:16

Act 14:16. Ὃς, who) An anticipation of an objection that might be made, lest the Lycaonians should suppose that, had these same things been true, they would have heard them from their parents.—παρῳχημέναις, past) οἴχεσθαι is said of that which perishes and passes away ineffectual. See by all means 2 Esdras 9 :(13) 14–22; with which comp. as to a vain mode of life, 1Pe 1:18: and, on the contrary, as to believers, Act 13:36, David served the will of God in his generation.—εἴασε, suffered) A great judgment. With this may be compared Heidanus de Orig. erroris, l. vi., etc.—πάντα, all) The largeness of the number of those in error does not take away (set aside) the error.—ὁδοῖς αὐτῶν, in their own ways) of idolatry, which they themselves entered upon (have begun).

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Act_14:16-18. Who in the past ages left the Gentiles to themselves (did not guide them by special revelation), although He withal made Himself known, doing good to them, by the blessings of naturean indulgent description (comp. Act_17:30) of the ungodly character of the heathen, with a gently reproving reference to the revelation of God in nature. Ὅρα πῶς λανθανόντως τὴν κατηγορίαν τίθησι, Chrysostom. Grotius aptly remarks: Egregiam hic habemus formam orationis, quam imitari debeant, qui apud populos in idololatria educates evangelium praedicant. Comp. Schneckenburger, die natürl. Theol. d. Paul. in his Beitr. p. 97 ff.

ταῖς ὁδοῖς] local[18] dative: in their ways. Comp. on 2Co_12:18; Jud_1:11; Jdt_13:16; Sir_35:20. What is meant is the development of the inward and outward life in a way shaped by themselves, without divine regulation and influence, and also without the intervention of the divine anger. Comp. Rom_3:10 ff; Rom_1:22 ff., where the whole moral abomination and curse of this relation is unveiled, whereas here only alluring gentleness speaks.[19]

καίτοιγε οὐκ ἀμάρτ. κ.τ.λ.] An indication that they, nevertheless, might and should have known Him. Comp. Rom_1:20, καίτοιγε, as in Joh_4:2, quamquam quidem, and yet. See also Baeumlein, Partik. p. 245 ff.; and Krüger, Dion. H. p. 267.

Observe the relation of the three participles, of which the second is logically subordinate to the first, and the third to the second: as doer of good, in that He gives you rain, thereby filling, etc.

οὐρανόθεν] not uselessly added. Coelum sedes Dei, Bengel. Observe also the individualizing ὑμῖν (see critical remarks).

εὐφροσύνης] joy generally. Arbitrarily, Grotius and Wolf suggest that (Sir_31:31) wine is meant.

τὰς καρδίας ὑμῶν] neither stands for the simple ὑμᾶς, nor is it to be taken, with Wolf, of the stomach (Thuc. II. 49. 2); but the heart is filed with food, inasmuch as the sensation of being filled, the pleasant feeling of satisfaction, is in the heart. Comp. Psa_104:15; Jam_5:5.

τοῦ μὴ θύειν αὐτοῖς] comp. Act_10:47. The genitive depends on κατέπαυσαν, according to the construction καταπ. τινά τινος to divert a person from a thing, to hinder him in it (Hom. Od. xxiv. 457; Plat. Polit. p. 294 E; frequently in the LXX.), and μή is the usual particle with verbs of preventing and hindering (Hartung, Partikell. II. p. 167 f.; Baeumlein, l.c. p. 298 ff.).

[18] See, generally, on the dativus localis, Becker, Homer. Blätter, p. 208 f.

[19] The announcement of the gospel forms the great epoch in the history of salvation, with the emergence of which the times of mens being left to themselves are fulfilled. See Act_17:30; Rom_3:25 f. Comp. also Hebart, natürl. Theol. d. Ap. Paul. p. 13. For judgment Jesus has come into the world.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Act 14:16-17 . ὃς : God working not only in creation, but in history, not only the source of life but the personal living Guide and Ruler of man, even in His tolerance far removed from the easy indifference of the gods of Olympus. The three present participles ἀγαθ .… διδ .… ἐμπ .… mark the continuous activity and goodness of God, and are all three epexegetical of ἀμάρτυρον ; whilst the second participle is generally regarded as specifying a mode of the first, and the third as expressing a consequence of the second. οὐρανόθεν : only again in Act 26:13 in N.T., see 4Ma 4:10 ; so in Hom. and Hes., old genitive of οὐρανός . ὑετοὺς διδοὺς καὶ καιροὺς καρπ .: the Apostle’s appeal becomes more significant when we remember that Zeus was spoken of as ὑέτιος , ἐπικάρπιος (Bethge); the rain was regarded in the East as a special sign of divine favour, and here, as in the O.T., God’s goodness and power in this gift are asserted as against the impotence of the gods of the heathen, see especially Jer 14:22 , and cf. 1Ki 18:1 and 1Sa 12:17 where this same phrase ὑετ . διδόναι is used of God. καρπ .: here only in N.T., cf. LXX, Jer 2:21 , Psa 106:34 , and also classical; cf. for the whole passage Cicero, De Nat. Deorum , ii., 53. ἐμπιπλῶν ( ἐμπιπλάω ), cf. Luk 1:53 ; Luk 6:25 , Rom 15:24 , Joh 6:12 , frequent in LXX, e.g. , Psa 106:9 , Isa 29:19 , Jer 38:14 , Sir 4:12 ; see also below on εὐφροσ . καρδίας : Blass compares Luk 21:34 , where the heart is spoken of as overcharged with surfeiting, as here it is spoken of as filled with food. But the word may be used not merely as = ὑμᾶς , or in a merely material sense, but as including the idea of enjoyment , cf. LXX, Psa 103:15 ; Winer-Moulton, Act 23:1 , and Alford on Jas 5:5 . εὐφροσύνης : in its ordinary Greek use might simply mean “good cheer,” although we need not limit it here with Grotius to wine as in Sir 31:28 ; very frequently used in LXX (only here and in Act 2:28 in N.T.), sometimes of mere festive joy, Gen 31:27 , sometimes of religious gladness, Deu 28:47 . Although St. Paul could not have used it here as it is employed in Act 2:28 , yet he might perhaps have used it as a kind of transition word to lead his hearers on to a deeper gladness of heart, a richer gift of God than corn and wine, cf. Psa 4:7 , and for the phrase ἐμπ . εὐφροσ . Isa 29:19 , Sir 4:12 . It may well be that whilst we have in this address the germ of the thoughts afterwards developed in Rom 1:18 ; Rom 1:23 , etc., St. Paul did not press his argument on this occasion as in his Epistle, but took the first step to arrest the attention of his hearers by an appeal to the goodness, not to the severity, of God the goodness which leadeth to repentance. It has been thought that the words οὐρ . ἡμῖν διδούς κ . τ . λ . are rhythmical, and may have been some familiar fragment of a song, or a citation from a Greek poet, in which the Apostle expressed his thoughts; others have maintained that they may have formed part of the hymn sung in the procession for the sacrifice, and that St. Paul made the words his text; see Humphry, in loco; Farrar, St. Paul , i., p. 384; Felten, in loco; but it may be fairly said that the O.T. language was in itself quite sufficient to suggest the Apostle’s words. On the remarkable parallels between this speech and the sayings of Pseudo-Heracleitus in his letters see Gore, Ephesians , p. 253 ff., but see also Bernays, Die Heraklitischen Briefe , p. 29. πάντα τὰ ἔθνη : “all the Gentiles,” R.V., the words divided mankind into two classes, but there was the same Lord over all, Rom 3:29 . ἐν ταῖς παρῳχ . γενεαῖς : “in the generations gone by,” R.V. παρῳχ .: not in LXX or Apocrypha, but classical, and used also by Josephus. εἴασε ( cf. Act 17:30 , Rom 3:25-26 ) … πορεύ . ταῖς ὁδοῖς αὐτῶν , i.e. , without summoning them as now to repent, cf. for the combination Act 9:31 , and for the expression 2Co 12:18 , Jud 1:11 , Jas 5:20 (in classical Greek cf. Thuc., iii., 64, ἄδικον ὁδὸν ἰέναι ), cf. also the contrast between God’s ways and the wilfulness of Israel in the past, Psa 81:13 and previous verses, expressed in the same phraseology.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Custom, be it never so old, doth not excuse the idolaters.

Suffered them to live as they listed, prescribing and appointing them no kind of religion.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways--that is, without extending to them the revelation vouchsafed to the seed of Abraham, and the grace attending it; compare Act 17:30; Co1 1:21. Yet not without guilt on their part was this privation (Rom 1:20, &c.).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 16. Who in times past suffered all nations, c.] The words παντα τα εθνη, which we here translate, all nations, should be rendered, all the Gentiles, merely to distinguish them from the Jewish people: who having a revelation, were not left to walk in their own ways but the heathens, who had not a revelation, were suffered to form their creed, and mode of worship, according to their own caprice.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

16. In times past. Because the men of Lystra might object that that God was unknown hitherto, Paul and Barnabas prevent them and say, that all men wandered indeed in darkness, and that all mankind was stricken with blindness, but that they deny that any prejudice must be made according to the perverse ignorance of the world. These were two no small lets for the unbelievers, long antiquity of time, and the consent almost of all nations. Paul and Barnabas remove both in this place, If, say they, men have erred many years, [ages,] and if the world have wandered without reason and judgment, let not, therefore, the truth of God, when it appeareth, be less precious to you. For seeing that it is eternal, and is not changed, it is an unmeet thing that the long prescription of years should be set against it. They prove that there is no more aid or patronage to be found in the number of men. There is no cause (say they) why the conspiracy of all the whole world should keep you from coming to the right way. Blindness hath got the upper hand among all people; but God doth now (appear and) give light to you. Therefore, your eyes must be open, and you must not slumber and sleep in darkness, though all people have been drowned therein hitherto.

Their ways. If he had only said that men were deceived until that time through God’s sufferance, we might easily gather thereby that all men can do nothing else but err, so long as they be not governed of God. Yet he speaketh far more plainly when he calleth errors the ways of men. For we are plainly taught by this what the wisdom and understanding of man’s mind can do in beholding and keeping the way of salvation. All people [nations] (saith he) have walked in their own ways; that is, they have wandered in darkness and death. It is all one as if he should say, that there is no sparkle of true reason in all the whole world.

Therefore, there is but one rule of true godliness, that is, that the faithful, casting from them all confidence in their own wit, do submit themselves to God. For the ways of men are now as they were in times past; and the examples of all times teach how miserably blind those men be who have not the word of God to give them light, though they think they can pass other men in quickness of sight. Immediately after the beginning of the world, the more part fell away unto diverse superstitions and wicked worshippings. Whence came that, save only because it pleased them to follow their own imaginations? When it might have seemed that the world was purged with the flood, it fell again [relapsed] straightway to the same vices. Therefore, there is nothing more deadly than to lean to our own wisdom.

But Paul and Barnabas show no cause here why the Lord suffered the world to err so long; and assuredly we must count the will of God alone the chiefest law of equity. God hath always a good reason for his worlds; but because it is oftentimes hid from us, it is our duty reverently to wonder at his secret counsel. We must, indeed, confess that the world was worthy of [deserved] such destruction; but there can no other reason be brought why the Lord had mercy rather on one age than on another, save only because it seemed good to him that it should be so. Therefore, Paul calleth that time which was appointed of God for preaching the gospel, the time of fullness, (Galatians 4:4,) lest any other opportunity be sought. And we must remember that which we had in the first chapter, that it is not for us to know the times and seasons which the Father hath placed in his own power. So that the cavil of the Papists is refuted, who say that it cannot be that God suffered his Church to err so long. For whence, I pray you, came the Gentiles but from the ark of Noah, when there was a certain singular purity of the Church? (Genesis 9:9.) Also, the posterity of holy Shem, together with others, did degenerate. Yea, Israel, the peculiar people of the Lord, was also left for a long time. Wherefore, it is no marvel if God did punish the contempt of his word with the same blindness under the reign of his Son as he did in times past.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(16) Who in times past suffered all nations.—Better, all the heathen; the term used being that which is always employed of the nations outside the covenant of Israel. We have here the first germ of what may be fairly described as St. Paul’s philosophy of history. The times of ignorance had been permitted by God, and those who had lived in them would be equitably dealt with, and judged according to their knowledge. The same thought meets us again in the speech at Athens (Act_17:30). In Romans 1, 2, 11, we meet with it, in an expanded form, as a more complete vindication of the righteousness of God. The ignorance and the sins of the Gentile world had been allowed to run their course, as the Law had been allowed to do its partial and imperfect work among the Jews, as parts, if one may so speak, of a great divine drama, leading both to feel the need of redemption, and preparing both for its reception. All were included in unbelief that God might have mercy upon all (Rom_11:32).

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

16. who in times past (by-gone generations) suffered all nations (all the heathen) to walk in their own ways] God had chosen Israel only for His own people before the coming of Christ, and had given to the rest of the world no revelation of Himself except what they could read in the pages of the book of nature. But that, St Paul says, spake clearly of a careful creator and preserver of the world.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Who in times past,.... For many hundred years past; even ever since God chose and separated the people of Israel from the rest of the nations, to be a peculiar people to himself: from that time he

suffered all nations to walk in their own ways; of ignorance, superstition, and idolatry; which they devised, and chose, and delighted in: not that he gave them any licence to walk in these ways, without being chargeable with sin, or with impunity; but he left them to themselves, to the dim light and law of nature, and gave them no written law, nor any external revelation of his mind and will; nor did he send any prophets or ministers of his unto them, to show them the evil of their ways, and turn them from them, and direct them to the true God, and the right way of worshipping him; but left them to take their own methods, and pursue the imagination of their own hearts: but the apostle suggests, that the case was now altered, and God had sent them and other ministers of his, among all nations of the world, to protest against their superstition and idolatry; and to reclaim them from their evil ways, and to direct them to the true and living God, and his worship, and to preach salvation by his Son Jesus Christ.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

16 Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways.

Ver. 16. Suffered all nations, &c.] That we walk not as other Gentiles, in our own ways, but know and serve the true God, is of his singular grace and favour. The ancient inhabitants of this land were as barbarous and brutish as any under heaven. Cicero ( De Nat. Deorum) parallels the Britons and Scythians. Jerome ever sets them in opposition to some other nation that is most tamed and civilized. Sed Britannorum inaccsssa Romanis loca Christo tamen subdita, saith Tertullian. Christ subdued those whom the Romans could never come at to conquer.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Who in times past - Previous to the gospel; in past ages.

Suffered all nations - Permitted all nations; that is, all Gentiles, Act 17:30. “And the times of this ignorance God winked at.”

To walk in their own ways - To conduct themselves without the restraints and instructions of a written law. They were permitted to follow their own reason and passions, and their own system of religion. God gave them no written laws, and sent to them no messengers. Why he did this we cannot determine. It might have been, among other reasons, to show to the world conclusively:

(1) The insufficiency of reason to guide people in the matters of religion. The experiment was made under the most favorable circumstances. The most enlightened nations, the Greeks and Romans, were left to pursue the inquiry, and failed no less than the most degraded tribes of people. The trial was made for four thousand years, and attended with the same results everywhere.

(2) It showed the need of revelation to guide man.

(3) It evinced, beyond the possibility of mistake, the depravity of man. In all nations, in all circumstances, people had shown the same alienation from God. By suffering them to walk in their own ways, it was seen that those ways were sin, and that some power more than human was necessary to bring people back to God.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

He left not himself without testimony. Inasmuch as the Gentiles had always the light of reason, and such lights, that the created things of this world, and from the visible effects of God’s providence, they might have come to the knowledge of the true God, the creator of all things. See Romans chap. i. (Witham) --- God did not leave himself without testimony among the Gentiles. He did not leave them without the means of discovering the way which led to him. They had the law of nature engraved in their hearts, the knowledge of good and evil, &c. (Menochius) --- Therefore they were inexcusable, if they did not know him. The invisible things of God, his eternal divinity might have been known to them from the consideration of the visible creation. (Romans i. 20.)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

There were two main objections which these heathen idolaters might make against the gospel, and the worship of the true God: and they are, first, from the antiquity, secondly, from the universality, of that false worship; both which the apostle here gives a critical answer unto, telling them, that the reason why so many, and for so long a time had followed idols, was from the just judgment of God upon them, as Psa 81:12; Rom 1:24,28.

Their own ways; ways of our choosing, and not of God’s commanding, are false ways.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

16. In times past—Before Christ came to establish a universal religion to be preached to every creature, abolishing all false systems, and filling the world with truth.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The generations gone by for times past, A.V.; the nations for nations, A.V.

God"s ways with the nations.

Attention is called to the sentence, "Who, in times past," or in bygone generations, "suffered all nations," or all the heathen, "to walk in their own ways." On this sentence Olshausen writes, "In the first place, Paul contrasts the present time, as the time of the Messiah, with former times, in which the heathen world, with no such light as the Jewish nation possessed, lived on in their own ways. In this thought is to be found the apology for the design of the people of Lystra, so blasphemous considered in itself. But again, this situation of the Gentile world was not sufficient to free them altogether from guilt, for Nature herself, with all the wonderful arrangements which she exhibits, furnished the means of rising to the idea of the true God, who summoned the whole fabric into being.

I GOD HAD "WAYS WITH THE NATIONS." A common sentiment has long prevailed that God altogether left the heathen nations alone, doing nothing for their intellectual or their moral life, and only preserving their physical being by his providence. It is a sentiment which can only be cherished so long as men do not think, and so long as they limit the teachings of the Divine Word by their prejudices. "The God of the whole earth must he be called," and "all souls are his." If they are his, he must be concerned in their well-being in every respect, and can never have stood aloof from their mental, moral, and spiritual needs. It pleased God to grant a special revelation to the Jews for the whole world"s sake; but this does not assume that he gave no revelations at all to others. In comparison, God"s ways with the nations may be called a "leaving them to their own devices;" but he watched over them while thus carrying out self-devised plans, and overruled even this to become a kind of preparation for that gospel revelation which could be made to the whole world. Each nation worked out a great experiment; we cannot always be sure what each experiment was, but we can see it precisely in some cases. It may have been Can man"s final good come through his imagination, or through his intellect, or through his artistic taste, or through his governmental faculties, or through his activities and energies? Put generally, we may say that God"s ways with the nations were to let them be free to find out for themselves whether in man"s own nature there was any power by which he could free himself from sin and secure the perfection of his being. Such an experiment or series of experiments had to be made in the interests of the whole race, and only when the failure of all such experiments was well proved could the revelation of salvation for men by a Divine intervention be made. Man must find out that he cannot save himself before he will be willing to look up and say, "Lord, help me!" The following passage from F. W. Robertson expresses the same view of God"s ways with the nations inanother and a suggestive form: that the Bible contains only a record of the Divine dealings with a single nation; his proceedings with the minds of other peoples are not recorded. That large other world no less God"s world than Israel was, though in their bigotry the Jews thought Jehovah was their own exclusive property scarcely is, scarcely could be, named on the page of Scripture except in its external relation to Israel. But at times, figures as it were cross the rim of Judaism, when brought in contact with it, and passing for a moment as dim shadows, do yet tell us hints of a communication and a revelation going on unsuspected. We are told, for example, of Job; no Jew, but an Arabian emir, who beneath the tents of Uz contrived to solve the question to his heart which still perplexes us through life the coexistence of evil with Divine benevolence; one who wrestled with God as Jacob did, and strove to know the shrouded Name, and hoped to find that it was love. We find Naaman the Syrian, and Nebuchadnezzar the Babylonian, under the providential and loving discipline of God. Rahab the Gentile is saved by faith. The Syro-phoenician woman by her sick daughter"s bedside, amidst the ravings of insanity, recognizes, without human assistance, the sublime and consoling truth of a universal Father"s love in the midst of apparent partiality. The "Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world" had not left them in darkness." How this may be applied to God"s ways with heathen nations now requires to be thought out. The universal revelation in Christ Jesus yet requires to be universally made known.

II GOD"S WAYS WITH THE NATIONS WILL BE ULTIMATELY VINDICATED. To their view and to our view there is much that seems to need vindicating. For instance,

(1) is there not much sign of favoritism in the Divine ways?

(2) do not multitudes of men morally perish while God withholds from them his revelation?

(3) however the experiment may serve the great interest of the race, it brings the ruin of the individual; and

(4) the darkness into which man sinks when left alone is so awful that even the gospel light seems powerless to dispel it. In such ways we find utterance for our questionings and doubts. And yet already God"s ways are being justified.

1. We are getting fuller and worthier conceptions of the Divine Being himself, which bring a most restful assurance that what he does for all his creatures is more than right, is lovingly right.

2. Philosophy is helping us to a truer knowledge of the individual man, and of the purpose of race and climatic diversities of man, and enabling us to conceive how God may deal with humanity as a whole, and with each part in the interests of the whole.

3. The Christian revelation declares that the mystery of earth will be unfolded by-and-by, and will even pass out of our thought as we contemplate the exceeding glory of its perfected redemption.

4. Christian missions are spreading the one saving revelation of God amongst the nations in a way that assures of the coming fulfillment of our largest hopes. Till the day of vindication fully dawns, we must strive to understand better God"s ways, and above all to make full present response to God"s grace in Christ Jesus as revealed unto us. R.T.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Who in times past - He prevents their objection, "But if these things are so, we should have heard them from our fathers." Suffered - An awful judgment, all nations - The multitude of them that err does not turn error into truth, to walk in their own ways - The idolatries which they had chosen.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

See notes one verse 14

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

16. ὃς ἐν ταῖς παρῳχημέναις γενεαῖς κ.τ.λ., who in bygone generations suffered all the heathen to walk in their own ways. On this cf. Act 17:30; Rom 1:2.

πορεύεσθαι ταῖς ὁδοῖς. This phrase in the LXX. almost always has the preposition ἐν, but it is found without a preposition (according to some MSS.) in 2Ch 11:17.

God had chosen Israel only for His own people before the coming of Christ, and had given to the rest of the world no revelation of Himself except what they could read in the pages of the book of nature. But that, St Paul says, spake clearly of a careful Creator and Preserver of the world.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

16.] Compare Rom 3:25, Rom 3:26, and ch. 17:30.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Times [γενεαις] . More correctly, generations, as Rev.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.