Acts 4:30 - Exposition

While thou stretchest for by stretching, A.V.; thy for thine, A.V.; through for by, A.V.; Servant for child, A.V., as in Acts 4:27 and Acts 3:13 , Acts 3:26 . While thou stretchest , etc. The A.V. seems preferable. It was the fact that, while they preached the Word of God, the Lord confirmed the Word with signs following, which gave them such superhuman courage to persevere in the face of death and bonds. And this was God s method and means of encouraging them. And that signs and wonders may be done. But this clause is better rendered, as Beza and Bengel render it, in dependence upon ἐν τῷ , and by signs and wonders being done, as the consequence of the stretching out of the hand of Jesus. The other ways of construing the sentence are either to make the clause, "that signs and wonders may be done," dependent upon "grant," which seems to be the meaning of the A.V., or else to take it, as Meyer does, as an independent clause, expressing the aim of the stretching out of the hand.