Mark 16:18

Mar_16:18

They shall take up serpents.

The privileges of believers

It is to men who believe, through their belief, that privileges such as these are to be given. The essence and ground of the promised power is faith. That old word, Faith! That old thing, Faith! How men have stumbled over its definition, and bewildered and ensnarled themselves and those who heard them! God forbid that I should bewilder you today. I want to be as clear and simple as I can; and though I would be far from disparaging any of the subtler and more elaborate descriptions of what faith is, I am sure that we may give ourselves a definition which is true beyond all doubt, and which is full enough to answer all the need of definition which we shall meet today. Faith, then, personal faith, is this, the power by which one beings vitality, through love and obedience, becomes the vitality of another being. Simple enough that is, I am sure, for any man who will think. I believe in you, my friend; and your vitality, your character, your energy, the more I love and obey you, passes over into me. The saint believes in his pattern saint, the soldier believes in his brave captain, the scholar believes in his learned teacher. In every ease the vitality of the object of faith comes through love and obedience to the believer. Faith is not love nor obedience, but it works by both. A man may love me and yet not have faith in me. A man may obey me, and yet not have faith in me. Faith is a distinct relation between soul and soul; but it is recognizable by this result, that the life of one soul becomes the life of another soul through obedience and love. Now faith in Christ, what is it? Just in the same simple way, it is that power by which the vitality of Christ, through our love and obedience to Him, becomes our vitality. The triumph of the believing soul is this, that he does not live by himself; that into him is ever flowing, by a law which is both natural and supernatural, a law that is supernatural only because it is the consummation and transfiguration of the most natural of all laws-there is always flowing into him the vitality of the Christ whom he loves and obeys. His whole nature beats with the inflow of that Divine life. He lives, but Christ lives in Him. And then add one thing more. That this vitality of Christ, which comes into a man by faith, is not a strange and foreign thing. Christ is the Son of Man, the perfect Man, the Divine Man. Add this, and then we know that His vitality filling us is the perfection of human life filling humanity. They that believe are not men turned into something else than men by the mixture of a new and strange Divine ingredient. They are men in whom human life is perfect in proportion to the completeness of their faith through the Son of Man. They are men raised to the highest power. The man in whom Christ dwells by faith is the man in whom the Divine ideal of human life is perfect, or is steadily becoming perfect, by the entrance into him of the perfect life of the Man Christ Jesus, through obedience and love. (Phillips Brooks, D. D.)

The promise to believers

These signs shall follow them that believe, them that have the complete human life by me-Christ says, If they drink, etc. Is that a prize? Is it wages which is offered for a certain meritorious act, which is called faith? Not so, surely! It is a consequence. It is a necessity. Safety and helpfulness. These come out of the full life of Christ in the soul of man as the inevitable fruits. Safety, so that what hurts other men shall not hurt him. Helpfulness, so that his brethren about him shall live by his life. These are the utterances of the vitality of him who is thoroughly alive. It is by life, by full, vigorous, emphatic existence that men are safe in this world, and that they save other men from death. Men everywhere are trying to be safe by stifling life; by living just as low as possible. Men everywhere are trying not to do one another harm, trying to spare each others souls by tender petting, by guarding them against any vigorous contact with life and thought. Not so, says the Bible. Only by the fulness of life does safety come. Only by the power of contact with life are sick and helpless souls made whole. None but the live man saves himself or quickens the dead to life, saves himself or saves his neighbour. It is a noble assertion. The whole Bible, from its first page to its last, is full of the assertion of the fundamental necessity of vitality; that the first thing which a man needs in order to live well, is to live. (Phillips Brooks, D. D.)

The safety of faith

Let us consider the safety which Christ offers. It is a safety not by the avoidance of deadly things, but by the neutralizing of them through a higher and stronger power. There is no such idle promise as that if a man believes in Christ a wall shall be built around his soul, so that the things out of which souls make sin cannot come to Him. The Master knew the world too well for that. His own experience on the hill of His temptation was still fresh in His memory. He knew that life meant exposure, that sin must surely beat at every one of these hearts. Nay, that the things out of which sin is made, temptation, moral trial, must enter into every heart; and so He said not, I will lead you through secluded ways where none but sweet and healthy waters flow, but, Where I lead you, there will be the streams of poison. Only if you have the vitality which comes by faith in Me, your life shall be stronger than the poisons death. If you drink any deadly thing it shall not harm you….Only those temptations which we encounter on the way of duty, in the path of consecration, only those has our Lord promised us that we shall conquer. He sends us out to live and work for Him. The chances of sin which we meet while that Divine design of life, the life and work for Him, is clear before us, shall not hurt us. When we forget that design, our arm withers, our immunity is gone. It is only when we are about some higher task, only when they meet us as accidents in the service of Christ, that we have a right deliberately to encounter temptation and the chance to sin, and may claim the Lords promise of immunity. Think in how many places that law applies. Have I a right to read this sceptical book-this hook in which some able, witty man has gathered all his skill against my Christian faith? It is a book of poison. Have I a right to drink it? Who can say absolutely yes or no? Who does not feel that it depends upon what sort of life the reader brings to meet the poison? If in your soul there is a passionate desire for truth, if you do really love and serve Christ, and want to know Him better, that you may love and serve him more, if this book comes as a help to that part of a study by which you shall get nearer to the heart of the truth and Him, then if you drink that deadly thing it shall not harm you. Nay, you may rise up from the reading with a faith more deep. Whatever change your faith may undergo, it shall win a profounder life. But if there is no such earnestness, no such life as this, if it is mere curiosity, mere desire to be fine and liberal, mere defiance, a mere wantonness, then the poison has it all its own way; there is no vigorous life to meet it; and its death spreads through the nature till it finds the heart … And so it is everywhere with all exposure of the spiritual life. What took you there? What right had you to be there? These are the critical questions on which everything depends. If you are passing through temptation with your eye fixed on a pure, true life beyond it, temptation being only a necessary stage upon your way, so long as you keep that purpose, that resolution, that ideal, you shall be safe. If you are in temptation for temptations sake, with no purpose beyond it, you are lost. (Phillips Brooks, D. D.)

The helpfulness of faith

Not only is the man of faith promised safety for himself, but that he shall be helpful to others too. These two things-safety and helpfulness-go together, not merely in this special promise of the Saviour, but in all life. So is the whole world bound into a whole, so does the good that comes to any man tend to diffuse itself and touch the lives of all, that these two things are true. First, that no man can be really safe, really secure that the world shall not harm and poison him, unless there is going out from him a living and life-giving influence to other men. And second, that no man is really helping other men unless there is true life in his own soul. No man can really save another unless he saves himself. It is the good man by his good deeds that gives life to the world. Always it is the living, not the dead, who give life. It is the man not who has sinned deeply, but who has known by intense sympathy what sin is, how strong, how terrible, and yet escaped it for himself,-he is the man who helps the sinners most; he is the anointed who carries on and carries round the Christs salvation. In their deepest need the wickedest men look to the purest men they know; the deadest to the livest; first to those who they think have most escaped sin, then to those who they think have been most cleansed of sin by repentance and forgiveness. Here is a man in whom I know that the promise of Christ is certainly fulfilled. He is a believer, and through his open faith the life of Christ flows into him constantly, and is his life. Full of that life, he gives it everywhere he goes. The sick in soul touch his soul and are well again. The discouraged find new bravery; the yielding souls are clad anew with firmness. The frivolous grow serious, the mean are stung or tempted into generosity, and sinners hate their sin and crave a better life, wherever this man goes. (Phillips Brooks, D. D.)

The secret of the believers helpfulness

The power of these life-giving lives seems to be described in these two words-testimony and transmission.

I. The testimony which they bear by the very fact of their own abundant life. They show the presence, they assert the possibility of vitality. Very often this is what souls whose spiritual life is weak and low need to have done for them. Men half alive grow to doubt of the fuller life in anybody. Men try to realize the descriptions of religion which they hear, and, falling short of them, they grow ready to believe that religion is a thing of excited imaginations, and to give up all thought of making it real in themselves. It is not only the badness in the world, it is the dreadful incredulity of good, it is the despair and lack of struggle which tells how low ebbs out the tide of spiritual life. Then comes the man in whom spiritual life is a real, deep, strong, positive thing. The first work which that man does is to bear the simple testimony of his life that life is possible. Already, just in acknowledgement of that, the sick faces begin to revive, and the sick eyes look up to him. The brave and godly boy among a group of boys just learning to be proud of godlessness and contemptuousness of piety-the man of golden principles among the sceptics of the street-the one true penitent rejoicing in a new and certain hope out of the ranks of flagrant sin-these instantly, the moment that they begin to live, begin to bear their testimony of life, and so make life about them.

II. Transmission. The highest statement of the culture of a human nature and of the best attainment that is set before it, is that, as it grows better, it grows more transparent and more simple, more capable therefore of simply and truly transmitting the life and will of God which is behind it. The thought of a man, as he improves and strengthens, getting the control of his own powers, and becoming more and more a source of power over other men, this thought, which has doubtless its own degree of truth, is limited and vulgar beside the breadth and fineness of the other idea, that as a man is trained and cultured, as the various events of life create their changes in him, as tempests beat him and sunshine bathes him, as he wrestles with temptation and yields to grace, as he goes on through the springtime, the summer, and the autumn of his life, the one highest purpose and result of it all is to beat and fuse his life into transparency, so that it can transmit the life of God. For all good is from God, and He uses our lives, all of them, to reach other mens lives with. Only the difference is this: upon a life of sin, all hard and black, God shines as the sun shines on the black, hard marble, and by reflection thence strikes on the things around, leaving the centre of the marble itself always dark. But on a life of obedience and faith, God shines as the sun shines on a block of crystal, sending its radiance through the willing and transparent mass, and warming and lighting it all into its inmost depths. (Phillips Brooks, D. D.)

Signs unnecessary now

Though the miracle-working power remained in the Church after the ascension of our Lord, Christianity was made less dependent on such external signs and tokens, and more and more on the moral and spiritual power of the Word itself. With this promise compare the still more general one of Psa_91:1-16. Such signs as are indicated here are not needed in this age, when the Divine nature of Christianity is witnessed by such historical evidences as are afforded by the moral, the religious, the social, the political, and even the commercial development which has everywhere attended on and resulted from its progress. I can hardly conceive that occasion ever can arise for the further fulfilment of this promise. Christianity is itself a greater sign than any the apostles wrought. (Abbott.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mar 16:18. Θανάσιμον, deadly) The resurrection of dead men is not here mentioned: Jesus Christ performed more than He promised. But we read of only Tabitha being raised by Peter, and Eutychus by Paul: for now that the Saviour has entered His glory, it is more desirable [more to be wished for] to wing one’s flight by faith out of this world into the other, than to return to this life.

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

Mar_16:18. Ὄφεις ἀροῦσι] They shall lift up serpents (take them into the hand and lift them up). Such a thing is not known from the history of the apostolic times (what took place with the adder on the hand of Paul in Act_28:2 ff. is different); it would, moreover, be too much like juggling for a σημεῖον of believers, and betrays quite the character of apocryphal legend, for which, perhaps, a traditional distortion of the fact recorded in Act_28:2 f. furnished a basis, whilst the serpent-charming so widely diffused in the East (Elsner, Obss. p. 168; Wetstein in loc.; Winer, Realw.) by analogy supplied material enough. The promise in Luk_10:19 is specifically distinct. Others have adopted for αἴρειν the meaning of taking out of the way (Joh_17:5; Mat_24:39; Act_21:36), and have understood it either of the driving away, banishing (Luther, Heumann, Paulus), or of the destroying of the serpents (Euthymius Zigabenus, Theophylact, both of whom, however, give also the option of the correct explanation); but the expression would be inappropriate and singular, and the thing itself in the connection would not be sufficiently marvellous. The meaning: to plant serpents as signs of victory with healing effect, in which actual serpents would have to be thought of, but according to their symbolical significance, has a place only in the fancy of Lange excited by Joh_3:14, not in the text. The singular thought must at least have been indicated by the addition of the essentially necessary word σημεῖα (Isa_5:26; Isa_11:12), as the classical writers express raising a signal by αἴρειν σημεῖον (comp. Thuc. i. 49. 1, and Krüger thereon).

κἂν θανάσ. τι πίωσιν κ.τ.λ.] Likewise an apocryphal appendage, not from the direct contemplation of the life of believers in the apostolic age. The practice of condemning to the cup of poison gave material for it. But it is not to be supposed that the legend of the harmless poison-draught of John (comp. also the story of Justus Barsabas related by Papias in Euseb. H. E. iii. 39) suggested our passage (in opposition to de Wette and older expositors), because the legend in question does not occur till so late (except in Abdias, hist. apost. v. 20, and the Acta Joh. in Tischendorf, p. 266 ff., not mentioned till Augustine); it rather appears to have formed itself on occasion of Mat_20:23 from our passage, or to have developed itself[186] out of the same conception whence our expression arose, as did other similar traditions (see Fabricius in Abd. p. 576). On θανάσιμον, which only occurs here in the N. T., equivalent to ΘΑΝΑΤΗΦΌΡΟΝ (Jam_3:8), see Wetstein, and Stallbaum, ad Plat. Rep. p. 610 C.

καλῶς ἕξουσιν] the sick.[187] Comp. Act_28:8 f.

[186] Lange knows how to rationalize this σημεῖον also. In his view, there is symbolically expressed the subjective restoration of life to invulnerability. Christ is held to declare that the poison-cup would not harm His people, primarily in the symbolical sense, just as it did not harm Socrates in his soul; but also in the typical sense: that the life of believers would be ever more and more strengthened to the overcoming of all hurtful influences, and would in many cases, even in the literal sense, miraculously overcome them. This is to put into, and take out of the passage, exactly what pleases subjectivity.

[187] Not the believers who heal (Lange: they on their part shall enjoy perfect health). This perverted meaning would need at least to have been suggested by the use of καὶ αὐτοί (and they on their part).

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.

Verse 18. Take up serpents] Several MSS. add εν ταις χερσιν, in their hands - shall be enabled to give, when such a proof may be serviceable to the cause of truth, this evidence of their being continually under the power and protection of God, and that all nature is subject to him. This also was literally fulfilled in the case of Paul, Ac 28:5.

If they drink any deadly thing] θανασιμον (φαρμακον) being understood-if they should through mistake, or accident, drink any poisonous matter, their constant preserver will take care that it shall not injure them. See a similar promise, Isa 43:2.

They shall lay hands on the sick] And I will convey a healing power by their hands, so that the sick shall recover, and men shall see that these are sent and acknowledged by the Most High. Several instances of this kind are found in the Acts of the Apostles.

That the apostles of our Lord should not lose their lives by poison is most fully asserted in this verse, and there is neither record nor tradition to disprove this. But it is worthy of remark, that Mohammed, who styled himself THE APOSTLE OF GOD, lost his life by poison; and had he been a true apostle of God, he could not have fallen by it. Al Kodai, Abul Feda, and Al Janabi, give the following account.

When Mohammed, in the seventh year of the Hejra, A. D. 628, had taken the city of Kheebar, from the Arab Jews, he took up his lodgings at the house of Hareth, the father of Marhab the Jewish general, who had been slain at the taking of the city by Alee, the son-in-law of Mohammed. Zeenab the daughter of Hareth, who was appointed to dress the prophet's dinner, to avenge the fall of her people, and the death of her brother, put poison in a roasted lamb which was provided for the occasion. Bashar, one of his companions, falling on too hastily, fell dead on the spot. Mohammed had only chewed one mouthful, but had not swallowed it: though, on perceiving that it was poisoned, he immediately spat it out, yet he had swallowed a sufficiency of the juice to lay the foundation of his death; though this did not take place till about three years after: but that it was the cause of his death then, his dying words related by Al Janabi, and others, sufficiently testify. When the mother of Bashar came to see him in his dying agonies, he thus addressed her: "O mother of Bashar, I now feel the veins of my heart bursting through the poison of that morsel which I ate with thy son at Kheebar."

Abul Feda, Ebnol Athir, and Ebn Phares say, that the prophet acknowledged on his death-bed, that the poison which he had taken at Kheebar had tormented him from that time until then, notwithstanding blisters were applied to his shoulders, and every thing done in the beginning to prevent its effects. Al Kodai and Al Janabi relate, that when Zeenab was questioned why she did this, she answered to this effect: "I said in my heart, If he be a king, we shall hereby be freed from his tyranny; and if he be a prophet, he will easily perceive it, and consequently receive no injury." To support his credit, he pretended that the lamb spoke to him, and said that it was infected with poison! See Elmakin, p. 8. It was therefore policy in him not to put Zeenab to death. It has pleased God that this fact should be acknowledged by the dying breath of this scourge of the earth; and that several of even the most partial Mohammedan historians should relate it! And, thus attested, it stands for the complete and everlasting refutation of his pretensions to the prophetic spirit and mission. Vide Specimen Hist. Arabum, a POCOCKIO, p. 189, 190. Le Coran traduit par SAVARY, vol. i; p. 135, and 212. See also, The Life of Mohammed by PRIDEAUX, 93, 101.

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

(18) They shall take up serpents.—The instance of St. Paul at Melita is the only recorded example of the kind (Act_28:1-6). Power over “serpents and scorpions” had, it will be remembered, been given before (Luk_10:19).

If they drink any deadly thing . . .—Of this there is no recorded instance in the New Testament, but it finds an illustration in the tradition of the poisoned cup which was offered to St. John.

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

18. they shall take up serpents] And so we read of St Paul shaking off the viper at Malta (Act_28:5). Comp. Luk_10:19.

and if they drink] As is related of St John that he drank the cup of hemlock which was intended to cause his death, and suffered no harm from it, and of Barsabas surnamed Justus (Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. iii. 39).

they shall lay hands on the sick] As St Peter did on the lame man at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple (Act_3:7), and St Paul on Publius in the island of Malta (Act_28:8). “Gifts of healing” are mentioned both by this last Apostle (1Co_12:9) and by St James (Mar_5:14-15) as remaining in the Church.

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.

So then, after the Lord,.... The Vulgate Latin and Syriac versions add, "Jesus"; and the Ethiopic version reads, "our Lord, the Lord Jesus"; and both Syriac and Persic read, "our Lord"; which is common in these versions, where the word "Lord" is used:

had spoken unto them; the disciples, the above words, which commissioned them where to go, what to do, and what to say; and what should follow them, for the confirmation of their mission and doctrine:

he was received up into heaven; in a cloud, angels attending him, and devils led captive by him, and with a welcome into his Father's presence:

and sat on the right hand of God; the Ethiopic version adds, "his own Father", and which is an evidence of his having done his work, and that to full satisfaction; and is an honour never conferred on angels, or any mere creature; and is a peculiar dignity conferred on the human nature of Christ, in union with his divine person; and here he will remain, till his second coming.

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

18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

Ver. 18. It shall not hurt them] No more shall the deadly poison of sin hurt those that have drunk it, if they belong to God, provided that they cast it up again quickly by confession, and meddle no more with such a mischief.

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.

They shall take up serpents - When it is necessary for the sake of establishing religion, they shall handle poisonous reptiles without injury, thus showing that God was with them to keep them from harm. This was literally fulfilled when Paul shook the viper from his hand. See Act 28:5-6.

Any deadly thing - Any poison usually causing death.

Shall not hurt them - There is a similar promise in Isa 43:2.

They shall lay hands on the sick ... - See instances of this in the Acts of the Apostles, Act 3:6-7; Act 5:15, etc.

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

18. They shall take up serpents — All the miracles here specified, and more, were doubtless plentifully performed in the early Christian Church; but the scantiness of the historical record furnishes no narratives of some of them. Of the present miracle of taking up serpents but a single instance remains on record, namely, in Act_28:1-6.

Drink any deadly thing — There is a legend that this miracle occurred to the apostle John, but it is not sufficiently authentic. Hands on the sick… recover — Instances are alluded to in Act_3:6; Act_5:15, and Jas_5:14.

As bodily ills are the shadow of the ills of the soul, so these miracles of external mercy are images of the spiritual and moral miracles that Christianity ever works. In all ages the regenerating Spirit casts out devilish passions from men’s souls. The young convert to the Gospel speaks with a new language. The powerful grace of God enables the faithful Christian to handle unharmed the evil things of this life, and perform its secular business, which bite other men and kill them. The cup of temptation and trial which poisons the soul of the unregenerate is drained by the faithful truster in Christ unhurt. And from all the ailments of which men sicken and die, the power of the resurrection shall completely heal them.

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

If they drink any deadly thing - But not by their own choice. God never calls us to try any such experiments.

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

18. [3586][3587] omit καὶ ἐν ταῖς χερσίν.

[3586] Codex Alexandrinus. 5th cent. Brought by Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Constantinople, from Alexandria, and afterwards presented by him to King Charles I. in 1628. In the British Museum. The whole Gospel. Photographic facsimile, 1879.

[3587] Codex Bezae. 6th cent. Has a Latin translation (d) side by side with the Greek text, and the two do not quite always agree. Presented by Beza to the University Library of Cambridge in 1581. Remarkable for its frequent divergences from other texts. Contains Mark, except Mar 16:15-20, which has been added by a later hand. Photographic facsimile, 1899.

The question of the genuineness of the last twelve verses is discussed in the Introduction (pp. xliii ff.). The time has come when discussion ought not to be necessary. Writers and preachers might be allowed to assume that these verses are no part of the Gospel according to St Mark with as much freedom as they assume that the words about the Three Heavenly Witnesses are no part of the First Epistle of St John. There are cases in which the evidence on one side is so strong that no amount of evidence on the other side, however voluminous and imposing, can shake it; and this is one of them. The interesting facts pointed out by Professor A. C. Clark (The Primitive Text of the Gospels and Acts, pp. 73 f.) do not make the genuineness of these verses more probable.

18. ὄφεις ἀροῦσιν. Christ’s words to the Seventy (Luk 10:19), which mean that they will triumph over fraud and treachery (cf. Psa 91:13), would easily be understood literally, and what is said here may be an inference from that, or from what happened to St Paul at Malta (Act 28:3-6). There is no need to think of Moses’ rod or the brazen serpent. Even if ἐν ταῖς χερσίν be omitted (see crit. note), “take up in their hands” must be the meaning. “Remove” or “drive away” (Luther, vertreiben), as in 1Co 5:2, or “kill” (Euthym., Theoph., ἀφανίζειν), as in Luk 23:18; Joh 19:15; Act 21:36, is certainly not the meaning. The extermination of snakes is not regarded as a special work of believers. The writer thinks of them as miraculously preserved from the bite of venomous creatures.

θανάσιμόν τι πίωσιν. The famous legend about St John drinking hemlock without being harmed (Hastings’ D.B. II. p. 682 a) may have grown out of this verse or Mar 10:39. Eusebius (H. E. iii. 39) quotes from Papias a similar story about Justus Barsabbas, and there are many such. Nowhere else in Bibl. Grk is θανάσιμος found; in class. Grk it means “near death” of persons and “deadly” of things. The narrator understands the words literally in each case. He is not thinking of spiritual serpents or spiritual poisons. The cessation of the power of serpents and poisons and wild beasts is often given as a feature of the Golden Age (Isa 11:8-9, Isa 35:9, Isa 65:25; Eze 34:25; Job 5:22-23; Hos 2:18). Virgil has the same idea (Ecl. iv. 24, viii. 71, Geor. ii. 152).

χεῖρας ἐπιθήσουσιν. The hands which can take up serpents with impunity can heal the diseases of their fellows. Christ Himself used this method of healing, and the Apostles did so also (Mar 6:5; Act 9:12; Act 9:17; Act 28:8). It is remarkable that anointing with oil (Mar 6:13; Jas 5:14) is not mentioned. It is perhaps accidental, but the order in which the signs are placed runs thus; casting out demons (time of Christ); speaking with tongues (Apostolic Age); taking up snakes and drinking poison (Growth of Legend); healing by laying on of hands (all ages). Contrast Mat 28:20.

καλῶς ἕξουσιν. The expression is classical, but is not found elsewhere in N.T., but κακῶς ἔχοντες is not rare (Mar 1:32; Mar 1:34, Mar 2:17, Mar 6:55).

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.

18. ὄφ. ἀρ.] See Act 28:3-5.

κἂν θαν.… βλάψῃ] We have no instance of this given in the Acts: but later, there are several stories which, if to be relied on, furnish examples of its fulfilment. Eusebius, H. E. iii. 39, says, … ἔτερον παράδοξον περὶ Ἰοῦστον τὸν ἐπικληθέντα Βαρσαβᾶν γεγονός, ὡς δηλητήριον φάρμακον ἐμπιόντος καὶ μηδὲν ἀηδὲς διὰ τὴν τοῦ κυρίου χάριν ὑπομείναντος.

ἐπὶ ἀῤῥ.] χεῖρας ἐπιθ. ἐπί τινα is in Mark’s manner: see ch. 8:25; 10:16. There is no mention of the anointing with oil here, as in Jas 5:14.

19,

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

The sick [αρρωστους] . See on Mr 6:5.

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