The Witnesses Wait, and the Empty Place Is Filled

The “former treatise” is the Gospel of Luke, addressed to the same man (Luke 1:3). There he was “most excellent Theophilus”, a title of rank the Book of Acts gives to the governors Felix and Festus (23:26; 26:25). Here the title is dropped. The name itself means dear to God.

“Taken up” is analambano, the verb the Greek Old Testament uses of Elijah being taken up into heaven (2 Kings 2:9-11). The Greek is loose enough that “through the Holy Ghost” can go with the commands he gave or with the choosing of the apostles; either way the Spirit is at work before Pentecost.

“Infallible proofs” translates a single word, tekmeria, which Greek rhetoric, from Aristotle onward, used for a conclusive sign that settles an argument, as opposed to a mere likelihood. “Being seen” is a present participle: he appeared to them repeatedly across the forty days, not once.

“Being assembled together” is synalizomenos, which may instead mean “eating salt with them”, sharing a meal. The Book of Acts later says the witnesses “did eat and drink with him after he rose” (10:41), and Luke 24:42-43 has him eat fish. “The promise of the Father” repeats Luke 24:49.

John’s saying (Luke 3:16) is now quoted by Jesus, without the words “and with fire”. “Not many days hence” turns out to be about ten: the ascension comes forty days after the resurrection, and Pentecost fifty days after the Passover sabbath.

“Restore” is apokathistemi, the verb Malachi uses of Elijah restoring hearts (Malachi 4:6 in the Greek). Peter will use its noun in the temple, “the times of restitution of all things” (3:21), so the question is not dropped from the Book of Acts; it is placed in a different frame.

“Times” and “seasons” are chronoi and kairoi, stretches of time and appointed moments. Paul uses the same pair when he declines to give the Thessalonians a date (1 Thessalonians 5:1). “Power” here is exousia, authority, a different word from the dynamis promised in the next verse.

“Witnesses” is martyres, the word that later came to mean martyrs; the Book of Acts takes the step itself when Paul calls Stephen “thy martyr” (22:20). “The uttermost part of the earth” echoes Isaiah 49:6, a text Paul and Barnabas quote of their own mission in 13:47.

Elisha was promised a double portion of Elijah’s spirit “if thou see me when I am taken from thee” (2 Kings 2:10). “While they beheld” makes the apostles eyewitnesses of the taking up, before the Spirit is given. A cloud is where God’s presence rests in the tabernacle and at the transfiguration (Luke 9:34).

“Looked stedfastly” is atenizo, one of Luke’s favourite verbs; nearly all its New Testament uses fall in Luke and Acts, and Stephen will look “up stedfastly into heaven” in 7:55. Two men in white also stood at the empty tomb (Luke 24:4), and “two men” talked with Jesus at the transfiguration (Luke 9:30).

The address “Ye men of Galilee” marks the apostles as provincials; at Pentecost the crowd will ask “are not all these which speak Galilaeans?” (2:7). “In like manner” includes the cloud, the vehicle of the Son of man “coming in a cloud” in Luke 21:27.

A sabbath day’s journey was about 2,000 cubits, a little over a kilometre, a limit drawn from the distance between the ark and the people in Joshua 3:4. Luke 24:50 says Jesus led them “as far as to Bethany”, which lies on the far slope of the same hill. Olivet is from the Latin for olive grove.

The list differs from Luke 6:14-16. John has moved up to third place, beside Peter, and the pair will act together through chapters 3 and 4. Simon is “Zelotes”, the zealous one. The upper room, hyperoon, was a room built on the flat roof, often the largest in the house.

“With one accord” is homothymadon, a word Luke uses ten times in the Book of Acts and that appears only once elsewhere in the New Testament (Romans 15:6). Jesus’ brethren had not believed in him (John 7:5); one of them, James, will preside at the council in chapter 15.

“Names” for persons is a Hebrew idiom (compare Revelation 3:4). The Mishnah later required 120 men for a town to have its own council, and some see that behind the number, or simply ten for each of the twelve; the text gives it without comment.

“Men and brethren”, andres adelphoi, is the formal address of the synagogue and runs through the speeches of the Book of Acts. The phrase “the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake” states plainly how the first believers read the Psalms: as words of the Spirit spoken through a human author.

“Part” is kleros, a lot, the share of land or duty that falls to someone. In verse 26 they will cast kleroi, lots, to decide who takes up the share Judas lost. The same word names both the portion and the means of assigning it.

“Falling headlong” is prenes genomenos; some scholars argue it can mean “swelling up”, a medical sense, which would fit a body left hanging. The Latin Vulgate reads “having hanged himself, he burst asunder”. “Reward of iniquity” is the phrase 2 Peter 2:15 uses of Balaam, who also sold out for pay.

Aceldama is Aramaic, haqel dema, field of blood. Matthew traces the name to the price of blood paid for it (Matthew 27:8); the Book of Acts traces it to the blood spilled there. The traditional site lies in the Hinnom valley south of the old city, among rock-cut tombs.

Psalm 69:25 reads “their habitation”; Peter makes it singular, “his”, to fit one man. The word for habitation, epaulis, is a farmstead or country dwelling, which fits a field left empty. The second line comes from Psalm 109:8.

“Went in and out among us” is a Hebrew idiom for leading a people and living a public life, used of Joshua (Numbers 27:17) and of David (1 Samuel 18:16). It covers the whole public ministry, not only the journeys.

The Greek has no word for “ordained”; it says “must one become a witness”. The King James supplies the verb. The starting point, John’s baptism, is the one Peter uses again when he tells the whole account to Cornelius (10:37).

Joseph carries three names: Joseph in Hebrew, Barsabas an Aramaic patronymic, perhaps “son of the sabbath”, and Justus in Latin, the kind of name a Jew used among Romans. Eusebius reports a tradition that Matthias had been one of the seventy sent out in Luke 10.

“Which knowest the hearts” is one Greek word, kardiognostes, found only here and in Peter’s words at the council, “God, which knoweth the hearts” (15:8). Whether “Lord” here means God or the risen Jesus is debated; Jesus chose the first twelve (1:2), which inclines some to the second.

Many manuscripts read “take the place of this ministry”, using topos, so the verse sets one place against another: the place in the apostleship that Judas left, and “his own place” where he went. The phrase is a grave euphemism for his end, left unexplained.

Lots were usually marked stones shaken in a vessel until one fell out; the priestly divisions were assigned that way (1 Chronicles 24:5). Proverbs 16:33 says “the lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the LORD.” This is the last time the New Testament records their use.