A Man Stands, and Peter Refuses the Credit

The ninth hour, about three in the afternoon, was the time of the evening sacrifice and its prayers; Josephus says the daily offerings were made in the morning and at the ninth hour. Cornelius is praying at the same hour in 10:30. Peter and John were paired before, sent together to prepare the Passover (Luke 22:8).

No other ancient source names a gate “Beautiful”. It is usually identified with the Nicanor Gate, whose Corinthian bronze Josephus says outshone gates plated with silver and gold, or else with a gate on the eastern side. Worshippers on their way to prayer were the likeliest to give, which is why he was laid there.

“Alms” is eleemosyne, from the word for mercy. In Jewish piety giving to the poor was counted as righteousness; Tobit says “alms doth deliver from death” (Tobit 12:9), and the Hebrew word for righteousness, tsedaqah, came to mean charity. His request was a standard one, made in passing.

The beggar has seen them only in passing, as one of hundreds of faces going through the gate. Peter answers with a fixed stare and a command, “Look on us”, which turns a routine exchange at the gate into a face-to-face encounter before a word about Jesus is spoken.

“Expecting” is prosdokao, the verb Luke uses for the people who were “in expectation” whether John might be the Christ (Luke 3:15). The man waits for a coin. What he is about to receive lies outside anything he has learned to expect at that gate.

This is the first healing in the Book of Acts, and it is done by naming Jesus rather than by any power claimed for Peter. “Of Nazareth” ties the name to an obscure hometown, the same one Pilate wrote over the cross. Several early manuscripts lack “rise up and”, reading simply “walk”.

The words for “feet” and “ankle bones”, basis and sphydra, are rare, and in 1882 W. K. Hobart used such terms to argue that Luke wrote as a physician. H. J. Cadbury answered in 1926 that the same vocabulary appears in non-medical writers. The man is raised by the right hand, the hand of strength.

Isaiah foresaw the day when “the lame man” would “leap as an hart” (Isaiah 35:6), and the verb here echoes it. The Book of Acts repeats the scene in Paul’s ministry: a man at Lystra, lame “from his mother’s womb”, who “leaped and walked” (14:8-10).

“The people” is laos, Luke’s word for the people of Israel at large, as distinct from their rulers, who will react quite differently in the next chapter. “Praising God” is the response Luke records after healings in his Gospel too (Luke 18:43).

“Knew” is epiginosko, to recognise, not merely to know about. “Amazement” is ekstasis, the root of “ecstasy”, being beside oneself, the same pair of reactions as when the paralytic walked home in Luke 5:26.

Solomon’s porch was the colonnade along the east side of the outer court, which Josephus attributes to Solomon’s building. Jesus had walked there in winter at the feast of dedication (John 10:23), and the believers will meet there regularly (5:12). The healed man is clinging to his two benefactors.

“Answered” with no question asked is a Hebrew way of saying he responded to what he saw. The crowd now “looks earnestly” at the apostles, the same verb as Peter’s fixed gaze at the man in verse 4. “Holiness” is eusebeia, piety, the reputation for devotion that could be imagined to earn a miracle.

“His Son” is pais, which can mean child or servant, and “glorified his servant” comes straight from Isaiah 52:13: “my servant... shall be exalted and extolled”, where the Greek has “glorified”. The passage that follows in Isaiah is the suffering servant. Pilate “was determined” means he had given a ruling for release.

“The Just One” becomes a title in the Book of Acts: Stephen uses it (7:52), and Ananias tells Paul he was chosen to see “that Just One” (22:14). At the cross the centurion said “Certainly this was a righteous man” (Luke 23:47). Luke says Barabbas had been jailed for sedition and murder (Luke 23:19).

“Prince” is archegos, leader, pioneer or founder, the one who goes first and opens the way. It returns in 5:31, “a Prince and a Saviour”, and Hebrews uses it for “the captain of their salvation” (2:10) and “the author... of our faith” (12:2).

The Greek is famously awkward, with “name” twice and “faith” twice, and C. C. Torrey argued that the first half of the Book of Acts was translated from Aramaic, citing clumsy sentences like this. “Perfect soundness” is holokleria, wholeness in every part, found only here in the New Testament.

“Wot” is the 1611 present of the old verb to wit, to know. The Law distinguished sins done unwittingly, which could be atoned for, from sins done “presumptuously” (Numbers 15:22-31). Luke 23:34 has Jesus pray, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”

No single prophet says in so many words that the Messiah must suffer; Peter speaks of “all his prophets” together. That was the reading the risen Jesus gave on the Emmaus road: “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things?” (Luke 24:26-27). The Greek says “his Christ”, God’s anointed.

“Blotted out” is exaleipho, to wipe a wax tablet or sponge ink off papyrus, the verb of David’s prayer, “blot out all mine iniquities” (Psalm 51:9). “Refreshing” is anapsyxis, a cooling or breathing space, found only here in the New Testament. “Be converted” is an active verb: turn round.

The oldest manuscripts read “appointed for you beforehand”, prokecheirismenon, not “preached before”, prokekerygmenon; the two words differ by a few letters, and the King James follows the second. The better text says Jesus was designated in advance as their Christ.

“Restitution” is apokatastasis, the noun of the apostles’ question in 1:6. Origen later made the word the name of his hope that all things, perhaps even the devil, would be restored; that teaching was condemned in 553. “Must” is dei, divine necessity, as the Son of man “must” suffer in Luke 9:22.

Deuteronomy 18:15 fed a lively expectation. The Samaritans looked for a returning prophet like Moses, the Taheb; the Dead Sea Scrolls speak of “the Prophet” to come; and John the Baptist was asked, “Art thou that prophet?” (John 1:21). Stephen will cite the same verse in 7:37.

The warning is not in Deuteronomy 18:19, which says only “I will require it of him”. “Shall be destroyed from among the people” is borrowed from Leviticus 23:29, the penalty for ignoring the Day of Atonement. Peter joins two texts of the Law into one.

Samuel is counted as the first of the prophets after Moses, and he is the one who anointed David (1 Samuel 16:13). The prophets after him, beginning with Nathan’s promise of a house for David, carry the line of promise Peter has been tracing since chapter 2.

“Children of the prophets” means heirs, those to whom the prophets’ promises belong, a Hebrew idiom. Genesis speaks of “nations” and “families” being blessed; Peter’s word is patriai, clans or kindreds, a family word, which makes the promise sound close at hand.

“Raised up” may mean raised from the dead, or brought onto the scene as God “raised up” the prophet in verse 22. The last clause can be read two ways in Greek: Jesus blesses them by turning each one from his iniquities, or blesses them as each one turns away.