Acts 4:22

Act 4:22. Πλειόνων, more than forty years) The infirmity of the man who was born lame had been inveterate.—ἐφʼ ὃν) on whom.

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

Act 4:22 . Characteristic of St. Luke to note the age, as in the case of Æneas, Act 9:33 , and of the cripple at Lystra, Act 14:8 , cf. also Luk 8:42 (although Mark also here notes the same fact), Act 13:11 . The genitive with εἶναι or γίγνεσθαι , instead of the accusative, in reference to the question of age, is noted by Friedrich as characteristic of St. Luke; cf Luk 2:42 (Luk 3:23 ), Luk 8:42 , and here; but cf. Mar 5:42 . ἐγεγόνει : in this episode “with its lights and shades” Overbeck (so Baur) can only see the idealising work of myth and legend, but it is difficult to understand how a narrative which purports to describe the first conflict between the Church and the Sanhedrim could be free from such contrasts, and that some collision with the authorities took place is admitted to be quite conceivable (Weizsäcker, Apostolic Age , i., 46, E.T.); we should rather say that St. Luke’s power as an historian is nowhere more visible than in the dramatic form of this narrative (Ramsay, St. Paul, u. s. ).

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

Verse 22. The man was above forty years old] The disease was of long standing, and consequently the more inveterate; but all difficulties, small or great, yield equally to the sovereign power of God. It is as easy with God to convert a sinner of forty or four-score, as one of ten years old. But he who now refuses to obey the call of God has neither reason nor revelation to support himself even in the most distant hope that he shall get, in a future time, the salvation which he rejects in the present.

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

(22) The man was above forty years old.—This precision in noting the duration of disease or infirmity is again characteristic of the writer. Comp. the case of the woman with an issue of blood (Luk_8:43); of Æneas (Act_9:33); of the cripple at Lystra (Act_14:8).

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

22. the man was above forty years old] To one who looked on the circumstances with a physician’s eye, as St Luke would (Col_4:14), this feature would be most noticeable. For limbs unused shrink and wither, and become disproportionate to the other parts of the frame. The physician’s description is also evident in the two unique words (βάσεις and σφυρά) which are used (Act_3:7) to describe the cure of the cripple.

on whom this miracle of healing was shewed] The word here used for miracle = sign. This the A.V. has endeavoured to represent by the use of the verb shewed. Lit., “on whom this sign of healing was wrought.”

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.

For the man was above forty years old,.... So that the miracle was the greater, that a man born lame, and who had been so above forty years, should have a cure; and he was the more known to the people, and his testimony met with more credit:

on whom this miracle of healing was showed; both for the good of men, for the glory of God, and for the confirmation of the Gospel of Christ.

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

22 For the man was above forty years old, on whom this miracle of healing was shewed.

Ver. 22. Above forty years old] An old cripple, therefore the greater miracle; so it is to convert an old sinner (that is habituated and long accustomed to evil courses) from the error of his way; since it is true of many others as well as of Flemings, that quo magis seneseunt, eo magis stultescunt, they grow crooked and aged with good opinions of themselves without cause; and can seldom or never be set straight again.

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.

For the man ... - The age of the man is mentioned to show the certainty and greatness of the miracle. If it had been a man who had been lame but a few years, or if it had been a child or a very young man, the case would not been so remarkable. But after a continuance of 40 years, all hope of healing him by any ordinary means must have been abandoned, and all pretence that this was jugglery or deception must have been absurd.

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

Therefore:

1. The harder to be cured.

2. The man was the more credible, who had so long known what it was to be without the use of his limbs, which now he enjoyed.

3. Whom they could not themselves but have often seen and heard begging.

But if he had laid so many years in the porch of the temple through which our Saviour frequently entered, how came it to pass that he was not cured before? We do not read that our Saviour denied any who came for cure. There need no other answer, but that all times and seasons are in God’s hands, who justly forbore to send deliverance till this very time, and now mercifully sent it; especially reserving this miracle for the confirmation of the truth of the gospel, and of the apostles themselves in the preaching of it.

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

22. Forty years old—The apostle here follows the track of popular thought. The miracle was genuine, for both the notoriety and the age of the man so demonstrated it.

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

More than for above, A.V.; wrought for showed, A.V. Wrought; literally, as in ver. 16, came to pass, or happened, or took place.

Spiritual inflexibility: a sermon to those in the midst of life.

The words of the text indicate that there was one fact which contributed greatly to sustain the miraculous character of the healing act that had been wrought. We might interpolate between this verse and the precedingthere could be no manner of doubt that this work was of God, "for the man," etc. We instantly recognize the force of the reasoning. When a man has suffered for forty years from physical deformity or rigidity and is restored in a moment, there is obviously some supernatural power brought into exercise. Long continuance in such a case immensely aggravates the difficulty and enhances the virtue of the cure. In this, as in so many other respects, the moral world answers to the material.

I IN THE EARLIER YEARS THE SOUL IS RESPONSIVE TO THE TOUCH OF TRUTH.

As God made us, and before we are acted upon and injured by the forces of evil, we are impressionable and flexible of soul. The mind is eager to learn and ready to receive; the conscience is quick to approve or to rebuke; the heart is tender and affectionate, readily responsive to goodness and to love; the soul is appreciative of that which is spiritually fair and beautiful; the will is open to change if cause be shown for reformation and return. This is the time when moral maladies can best be cured, when we may well hope that the heart will be healed of its sicknesses, and that the spirit will "be made whole" by the great Physician.

II CONTINUANCE. IN SIN INDURATES THE SOUL. When a human soul has continued for forty years in an evil habit or in a state of sin, it has become hardened in its way. Conscious wrongdoing acts harmfully on every faculty of our nature.

1. It blinds "the eyes of the understanding.

2. It hardens the heart.

3. It weakens and blunts the conscience so that its stroke is decreasingly effective.

4. It stiffens and fixes the will in its chosen course. Thus it makes the man himself unapproachable, unimpressionable, incurable. They who are passing on from youth and young manhood into middle life, not having entered the kingdom of God, have urgent need to "consider their ways." They are reaching the moral condition in which their conversion to God is a thing of greatest difficulty and serious unlikelihood. In the Book of Life, if their name should be recorded, will it not be added, as a proof of the wonder-working power of the Spirit of God, "for the man was forty years old," etc.? Remember that

(1) salvation is never impossible: at twice forty years of age it is within the reach of penitence and faith; but

(2) it becomes growingly unlikely as the periods of human life pass by. The Holy Ghost saith, "To-day. C.

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

See notes on verse 21

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.

22. ἐτῶν … τεσσεράκοντα, above forty years old. To one who looked on the circumstances, as St Luke, with a physician’s eye (Col 4:14), this feature would be most noticeable. For limbs unused shrink and wither, and become disproportionate to the other parts of the frame.

ἐφ’ ὃν γεγόνει τὸ σημεῖον κ.τ.λ. Literally, ‘on whom this sign of healing was wrought.’ The A.V. rendering σημεῖον by miracle has given somewhat of its sense by using the verb shewed.

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.

22.] πλ. τεσσ. for πλ. ἢ τεσσ., as sometimes in classical Greek; so οὐκ ἔλασσον πέντε καὶ εἴκοσι, Thucyd. vi. 95. See Winer, edn. 6, § 37, 5. The constr. ἐφʼ ὃν γεγόνει (see as in reff.) is accounted for by the sense involved in it being the access, so to speak, of the event to the person mentioned. In the note on Rev 4:2, I have noticed that καθῆσθαι ἐπί is commonly used when the fact is announced for the first time, with an accus.: but afterwards when the same fact is again referred to, with a gen. or dat.

τὸ σημ. τῆς ἰάσ.—the genitive of apposition; so τὸν ἀῤῥαβῶνα τοῦ πνεύματος, 2Co 5:5: σημεῖον περιτομῆς, Rom 4:11, &c. The circumstance of his being more than forty years old both gave notoriety to his person as having long resorted there, and made the miracle more notable, his malady being more confirmed.

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