Acts 8:32 - Exposition

Now the place for the place, A.V. ; was reading for read, A.V.; as a lamb … is dumb for like a lamb dumb, A.V. ; he openeth not for opened he not, A.V. As a lamb … is dumb. The A.V. of this clause seems to me preferable as a rendering of the Greek, though the Hebrew has המָלָאֶןֶ , "is dumb." But this may be rendered "which is dumb." As regards the word περιοχή , rendered place, and considered as the antecedent to which, the use of it by Cicero ('Ad Attic.,' 13.25) for a whole paragraph, and the employment in the Syriac Version of this passage of the technical word which denotes a "section" or "paragraph," and the Vulgate rendering, Locus … quem (Schleusner), as well as the etymology of the word, which means "a circuit," or "circumference," within which something is contained—all strongly point to the rendering in the text. Meyer, however, and others make τῆς γραφῆς the antecedent to ἥν , and construe, "The contents of the Scripture which he was reading," and refer to 1 Peter 2:6 .