{"commentary":{"id":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","website":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamieson-Fausset-Brown_Bible_Commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"db3d4c8b3c1f32ef9d1430a57392e02bda3a17aac1f9bbe398461de021a3cb13","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":66,"totalNumberOfChapters":1187,"totalNumberOfVerses":17056,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"ACT","commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Acts","commonName":"Acts","introduction":"THIS book is to the Gospels what the fruit is to the tree that bears it. In the Gospels we see the corn of wheat falling into the ground and dying: in the Acts we see it bringing forth much fruit (Joh 12:24). There we see Christ purchasing the Church with His own blood: here we see the Church, so purchased, rising into actual existence; first among the Jews of Palestine, and next among the surrounding Gentiles, until it gains a footing in the great capital of the ancient world--sweeping majestically from Jerusalem to Rome. Nor is this book of less value as an Introduction to the Epistles which follow it, than as a Sequel to the Gospels which precede it. For without this history the Epistles of the New Testament--presupposing, as they do, the historical circumstances of the parties addressed, and deriving from these so much of their freshness, point, and force--would in no respect be what they now are, and would in a number of places be scarcely intelligible.\n\nThe genuineness, authenticity, and canonical authority of this book were never called in question within the ancient Church. It stands immediately after the Gospels, in the catalogues of the Homologoumena, or universally acknowledged books of the New Testament (see Introduction to our larger Commentary, Vol. V, pp. iv, v). It was rejected, indeed, by certain heretical sects in the second and third centuries--by the Ebionites, the Severians (see EUSEBIUS, Ecclesiastical History, 4.29), the Marcionites, and the Manicheans: but the totally uncritical character of their objections (see Introduction above referred to, pp. xiii, xiv) not only deprives them of all weight, but indirectly shows on what solid grounds the Christian Church had all along proceeded in recognizing this book.\n\nIn our day, however, its authenticity has, like that of all the leading books of the New Testament, been made the subject of keen and protracted controversy. DE WETTE, while admitting Luke to be the author of the entire work, pronounces the earlier portion of it to have been drawn up from unreliable sources (New-Testament Introduction, 2a, 2C). But the Tubingen school, with BAUR at their head, have gone much farther. As their fantastic theory of the post-Joannean date of the Gospels could not pretend even to a hearing so long as the authenticity of the Acts of the Apostles remained unshaken, they contend that the earlier portion of this work can be shown to be unworthy of credit, while the latter portion is in flat contradiction to the Epistle to the Galatians--which this school regard as unassailable--and bears internal evidence of being a designed distortion of facts for the purpose of setting up the catholic form which Paul gave to Christianity in opposition to the narrow Judaic but original form of it which Peter preached, and which after the death of the apostles was held exclusively by the sect of the Ebionites. It is painful to think that anyone should have spent so many years, and, aided by learned and acute disciples in different parts of the argument, should have expended so much learning, research, and ingenuity in attempting to build up a hypothesis regarding the origination of the leading books of the New Testament which outrages all the principles of sober criticism and legitimate evidence. As a school, this party at length broke up: its head, after living to find himself the sole defender of the theory as a whole, left this earthly scene complaining of desertion. While some of his associates have abandoned such heartless studies altogether for the more congenial pursuits of philosophy, others have modified their attacks on the historical truth of the New Testament records, retreating into positions into which it is not worth while to follow them, while others still have been gradually approximating to sound principles. The one compensation for all this mischief is the rich additions to the apologetical and critical literature of the books of the New Testament, and the earliest history of the Christian Church, which it has drawn from the pens of THIERSCH, EBRARD, and many others. Any allusions which it may be necessary for us to make to the assertions of this school will be made in connection with the passages to which they relate--in Acts, First Corinthians, and Galatians.\n\nThe manifest connection between this book and the third Gospel--of which it professes to be simply the continuation by the same author--and the striking similarity which marks the style of both productions, leave no room to doubt that the early Church was right in ascribing it with one consent to Luke. The difficulty which some fastidious critics have made about the sources of the earlier portion of the history has no solid ground. That the historian himself was an eye-witness of the earliest scenes--as HUG concludes from the circumstantiality of the narrative--is altogether improbable: but there were hundreds of eye-witnesses of some of the scenes, and enough of all the rest, to give to the historian, partly by oral, partly by written testimony, all the details which he has embodied so graphically in his history; and it will appear, we trust, from the commentary, that De Wette's complaints of confusion, contradiction, and error in this portion are without foundation. The same critic, and one or two others, would ascribe to Timothy those later portions of the book in which the historian speaks in the first person plural--\"we\"; supposing him to have taken notes of all that passed under his own eye, which Luke embodied in his history just as they stood. It is impossible here to refute this gratuitous hypothesis in detail; but the reader will find it done by EBRARD (The Gospel History, sect. 110, Clark's translation; sect. 127 of the original work, Wissenschaftliche Kritik der Evangelische Geschichte, 1850), and by DAVIDSON (Introduction to New Testament, Vol. II, pp. 9-21).\n\nThe undesigned coincidences between this History and the Apostolic Epistles have been brought out and handled, as an argument for the truth of the facts thus attested, with unrivalled felicity by PALEY in his HorÃ&brvbr PaulinÃ&brvbr, to which Mr. BIRKS has made a number of ingenious additions in his HorÃ&brvbr ApostolicÃ&brvbr. Exception has been taken to some of these by JOWETT (St. Paul's Epistles, Vol. I, pp. 108 ff.), not without a measure of reason in certain cases--for our day, at least--though even he admits that in this line of evidence the work of PALEY, taken as a whole, is unassailable.\n\nMuch has been written about the object of this history. Certainly \"the Acts of the Apostles\" are but very partially recorded. But for this title the historian is not responsible. Between the two extremes--of supposing that the work has no plan at all, and that it is constructed on an elaborate and complex plan, we shall probably be as near the truth as is necessary if we take the design to be to record the diffusion of Christianity and the rise of the Christian Church, first among the Jews of Palestine, the seat of the ancient Faith, and next among the surrounding Gentiles, with Antioch for its headquarters, until, finally, it is seen waving over imperial Rome, foretokening its universal triumph. In this view of it, there is no difficulty in accounting for the almost exclusive place which it gives to the labors of Peter in the first instance, and the all but entire disappearance from the history both of him and of the rest of the Twelve after the great apostle of the Gentiles came upon the stage--like the lesser lights on the rise of the great luminary. \n\n\n\nNext: Acts Chapter 1\n\n","order":44,"numberOfChapters":28,"sha256":"c94aad3dd7e20061c0935f668f020beecd42d660333a1ba60e42c592e5a6a94e","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ACT/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ACT","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":28,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ACT/28.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ACT","chapter":28},"totalNumberOfVerses":775},"chapter":{"number":12,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":2,"content":["killed James . . . with the sword--beheaded him; a most ignominious mode of punishment, according to the Jews. Blessed martyr! Thou hast indeed \"drunk of thy Lord's cup, and hast been baptized with his baptism.\" (See on Mar 10:38-40.) A grievous loss this would be to the Church; for though nothing is known of him beyond what we read in the Gospels, the place which he had as one of the three whom the Lord admitted to His closest intimacy would lead the Church to look up to him with a reverence and affection which even their enemies would come to hear of. They could spring only upon one more prized victim; and flushed with their first success, they prevail upon Herod to seize him also.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["because he saw it pleased the Jews--Popularity was the ruling passion of this Herod, not naturally so cruel as some of the family [JOSEPHUS, Antiquities, 19.7.3]. \n\nto take Peter also--whose loss, at this stage of the Church, would have been, so far as we can see, irreparable. \n\nThen were the days of unleavened bread--seven in number, during which, after killing and eating the Passover, no leaven was allowed in Jewish houses (Exo 12:15, Exo 12:19).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers--that is, to four parties of four each, corresponding to the four Roman watches; two watching in prison and two at the gates, and each party being on duty for the space of one watch. \n\nintending after Easter--rather, \"after the Passover\"; that is, after the whole festival was over. (The word in our King James Version is an ecclesiastical term of later date, and ought not to have been employed here). \n\nto bring him forth to the people--for execution; for during \"the days of unleavened bread,\" or the currency of any religious festival, the Jews had a prejudice against trying or putting anyone to death.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["prayer was made without ceasing--rather, \"instant,\" \"earnest,\" \"urgent\" (Margin); as in Luk 22:44; Act 26:7; and Pe1 4:8 (see Greek). \n\nof the church unto God for him--not in public assembly, for it was evidently not safe to meet thus; but in little groups in private houses, one of which was Mary's (Act 12:12). And this was kept up during all the days of unleavened bread.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["And when Herod would have brought him forth--\"was going to bring him forth.\" \n\nthe same night--but a few hours before the intended execution. Thus long were the disciples kept waiting; their prayers apparently unavailing, and their faith, as would seem from the sequel, waxing feeble. Such, however, is the \"law\" of God's procedure (Deu 32:36 and see on Joh 21:3). \n\nPeter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains--Roman prisoners had a chain fastened at one end to the wrist of their fight hand, and at the other to the wrist of a soldier's left hand, leaving the right arm of the keeper free in case of any attempt to escape. For greater security the prisoner was sometimes, as here, chained to two soldiers, one on each side. (See Act 21:23.) Ye think your prey secure, bloodthirsty priests and thou obsequious tyrant who, to \"please the Jews,\" hast shut in this most eminent of the servants of Christ within double gates, guarded by double sentinels, while double keepers and double chains seem to defy all rescue! So thought the chief priests, who \"made the sepulchre of the Lord sure, sealing the stone and setting a watch.\" But \"He that sitteth in heaven shall laugh at you.\" Meanwhile, \"Peter is sleeping!\" In a few hours he expects a stingless death; \"neither counts he his life dear unto him, so that he may finish his course with joy and the ministry which he has received of the Lord Jesus.\" In this frame of spirit he has dropped asleep, and lies the picture of peace.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["the angel of the Lord--rather, \"an angel.\" \n\ncame upon him--so in Luk 2:9, expressive of the unexpected nature of the visit. \n\nsmote Peter on the side . . . Arise up quickly. And his chains fell off . . . Gird thyself . . . And so he did . . . Cast thy garment--tunic, which he had thrown off for the night.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["about thee . . . follow me--In such graphic minuteness of detail we have a charming mark of reality: while the rapidity and curtness of the orders, and the promptitude with which they were obeyed, betoken the despatch which, in the circumstances, was necessary.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["wist not that it was true; but thought he saw a vision--So little did the apostle look for deliverance!\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["first and the second ward . . . the iron gate that leadeth unto the city--We can only conjecture the precise meaning of all this, not knowing the position of the prison. \n\npassed on through one street; and forthwith the angel departed from him--when he had placed him beyond pursuit. Thus \"He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their heads cannot perform their enterprise\" (Job 5:12).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":11,"content":["when Peter was come to himself--recovered from his bewilderment, and had time to look back upon all the steps that had followed each other in such rapid succession. \n\nNow I know of a surety, that the Lord hath sent his angel, and hath delivered me, &c.--another evidence that Peter expected nothing but to seal his testimony with his blood on this occasion.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["he came to the house of Mary, &c.--who \"must have had a house of some pretensions to receive a large number; and, accordingly, we read that her brother Barnabas (Col 4:10) was a person of substance (Act 4:37). She must also have been distinguished for faith and courage to allow such a meeting in the face of persecution\" [WEBSTER and WILKINSON]. To such a house it was natural that Peter should come. \n\nmother of John . . . Mark--so called to distinguish him from the apostle of that name, and to distinguish her from the other Marys. \n\nwhere many were gathered together praying--doubtless for Peter's deliverance, and continuing, no doubt, on this the last of the days of unleavened bread, which was their last hope, all night in prayer to God.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["came to hearken--not to open; for neither was it a time nor an hour of night for that, but to listen who was there.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["opened not for gladness, but ran in and told, &c.--How exquisite is this touch of nature!\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["Thou art mad--one of those exclamations which one can hardly resist on hearing what seems far \"too good to be true.\" \n\nshe constantly affirmed--\"kept steadfastly affirming.\" \n\nthat it was even so. Then said they, It is his angel--his disembodied spirit, his ghost; anything, in fact, rather than himself. Though this had been the burden of their fervent prayers during all the days of unleavened bread, they dispute themselves out of it as a thing incredible. Still, it is but the unbelief of the disciples who \"believed not for joy and wondered\" at the tidings of their Lord's resurrection. How often do we pray for what we can hardly credit the bestowment of, when it comes in answer to our prayers! This, however, argues not so much hard unbelief as that kind of it incident to the best in this land of shadows, which perceives not so clearly as it might how very near heaven and earth, the Lord and His praying people, are to each other.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":16,"content":["Peter continued knocking--delay being dangerous.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["But he, beckoning . . . with his hand to hold their peace--a lively touch this. In the hubbub of joyful and wondering interrogatories there might mingle reflections, thrown out by one against another, for holding out so long against the testimony of Rhoda; while the emotion of the apostle's own spirit would be too deep and solemn to take part in such demonstrations or utter a word till, with his hand, he had signified his wish for perfect silence. \n\nGo show these things unto James and to the brethren--Whether James the son of Alpheus, one of the Twelve, usually known as \"James the Less,\" and \"James the Lord's brother\" (Gal 1:19), were the same person; and if not, whether the James here referred to was the former or the latter, critics are singularly divided, and the whole question is one of the most difficult. To us, it appears that there are strong reasons for thinking that they were not the same person, and that the one here meant, and throughout the Acts, is the apostle James. (But on this more hereafter). James is singled out, because he had probably begun to take the oversight of the Church in Jerusalem, which we afterwards find him exercising (Acts 15:1-29). \n\nAnd he departed, and went into another place--according to his Lord's express command (Mat 10:23). When told, on a former miraculous liberation from prison, to go and speak unto the people (Act 5:20), he did it; but in this case to present himself in public would have been to tempt God by rushing upon certain destruction.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":18,"content":["as soon as it was day, &c.--His deliverance must have been during the fourth watch (three to six A.M.); else he must have been missed by the keepers at the change of the watch [WIES].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":19,"content":["examined the keepers--who, either like the keepers of our Lord's sepulchre, had \"shaken and become as dead men\" (Mat 28:4), or had slept on their watch and been divinely kept from awaking. \n\ncommanded that they should be put to death--Impotent vengeance!\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":20,"content":["HEROD'S MISERABLE END--GROWING SUCCESS OF THE GOSPEL--BARNABAS AND SAUL RETURN TO ANTIOCH. (Act 12:20-25)\n\nHerod was . . . displeased with them of Tyre and Sidon--for some reason unknown; but the effect on their commercial relations made the latter glad to sue for peace. \n\ntheir country was nourished by the king's country--See Kg1 5:11; Ezr 3:7; Eze 27:17. Perhaps the famine (Act 11:28) made them the more urgent for reconciliation.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["And upon a set day Herod . . . made an oration unto them--to the Tyrians and Sidonians especially.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["the people gave a shout, &c.--JOSEPHUS' account of his death is remarkably similar to this [Antiquities, 19.8.2]. Several cases of such deaths occur in history. Thus was this wretched man nearer his end than he of whom he had thought to make a public spectacle.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":24,"content":["But the word grew, &c.--that is, Not only was the royal representative ignominiously swept from the stage, while his intended victim was spared to the Church, but the cause which he and his Jewish instigators sought to crush was only furthered and glorified. How full of encouragement and consolation is all this to the Christian Church in every age!\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":25,"content":["Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem--where, it thus appears, they had remained during all this persecution. \n\nwhen they had fulfilled their ministry--or service; that mentioned on Act 11:29-30. \n\ntook with them John . . . Mark--(See on Act 12:12), not to be confounded with the second Evangelist, as is often done. As his uncle was Barnabas, so his spiritual father was Peter (Pe1 5:13).\n\nPAUL'S FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY: \n\nIn Company with Barnabas. \n\n\n\n\nNext: Acts Chapter 13\n\n"]}],"introduction":"PERSECUTION OF THE CHURCH BY HEROD AGRIPPA I--MARTYRDOM OF JAMES AND MIRACULOUS DELIVERANCE OF PETER. (Acts 12:1-19)\n\nHerod the king--grandson of Herod the Great, and son of Aristobulus. He at this time ruled over all his father's dominions. PALEY has remarked the accuracy of the historian here. For thirty years before this there was no king at Jerusalem exercising supreme authority over Judea, nor was there ever afterwards, save during the three last years of Herod's life, within which the transactions occurred.\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ACT/12.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ACT","chapter":12},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ACT/13.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ACT","chapter":13},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ACT/11.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ACT","chapter":11},"numberOfVerses":23}