Acts 5:17 - Exposition

But for then, A.V.; they were filled for were filled, A.V.; jealousy for indignation, A.V. The high priest rose up . It was high time for him and his friends the Sadducees to be up and doing, if they wished to stop the spreading of the faith of Jesus Christ and the Resurrection. Which is the sect of the Sadducees ( Acts 4:1 , Acts 4:2 , note). It does not appear that Annas himself was a Sadducee, but his son was, and hence it is highly probable that the Sadducees should have attached themselves to Annas, and made a tool of him for suppressing the doctrine of the Resurrection. The sect; αἵρεσις (see Acts 15:5 ; Acts 24:5 , Acts 24:14 ; Acts 26:4 ; Acts 28:22 ). The word was applied first by Jews to Christians, anti then by Christians to sects ( 1 Corinthians 11:19 ; Galatians 5:20 ; 2 Peter 2:1 ). Jealousy scarcely so well expresses the idea of ζῆλος here as indignation does. In the First Epistle of Clement, ζῆλος is applied to the anger of Cain, of Joseph's brethren, of the Israelites against Moses, of the persecution of St. Peter and St. Paul (4; 5). It is only occasionally that it means that kind of anger which we call jealousy. The high priest and his party were indignant at the defiance of their authority, and at the success of the doctrine which they had made it a special object to put down.