Acts 21:38 - Exposition

Art thou not then the for art not thou that, A.V.; stirred up to sedition for madest an uproar, A.V.; led for leddest, A.V. ; the four thousand men of the Assassins for four thousand men that were murderers, A.V. Art thou not then , etc.? or as Meyer, "Thou art not then;" either way implying that Lysias had concluded that he was the Egyptian, but had now discovered his mistake. The Egyptian , etc. He whom Josephus calls (' Bell. Jud.,' it. Acts 13:5 ) "the Egyptian false prophet," and relates that, having collected above thirty thousand followers, he advanced from the desert to the Mount of Olives, intending to overpower the Roman garrison and make himself tyrant of Jerusalem, with the help of his δορυφόροι , or body-guard, who might very probably be composed of the Assassins or Sicarii, mentioned in the text. Stirred up to sedition ( ἀναστατώσας ) The difference between the A.V. and the R.V. is that the former takes the verb in an intransitive sense, "to make an Uproar," the latter in a transitive sense, governing the "four thousand men." In the only two other places were it occurs in the New Testament ( Acts 17:6 ; Galatians 5:12 ) it is transitive. It is not a classical word. The four thousand men . Josephus, in the above-cited passage, reckons the followers of the Egyptian impostor at above thirty thousand. But such discrepancies are of no account, partly because of the known looseness with which numbers are stated, and Josephus's disposition to exaggerate; partly because of the real fluctuation in the numbers of insurgents at different periods of an insurrection; and partly because it is very possible that a soldier like Lysias would take no count of the mere rabble, but only of the disciplined and armed soldiers such as these Sicarii were. It may be added that Josephus himself seems to distinguish between the rabble and the fighting men, because, though in the 'Bell. Jud.,' it. 13.5 he says that Felix attacked or took prisoners "most of his followers,'' in the 'Ant. Jud.,' 20. 8.6 he makes the number of slain "four hundred," and of prisoners "two hundred"—a very small proportion of thirty thousand. The Egyptian had premised his deluded followers that the walls of Jerusalem would fall down like those of Jericho. It is not known exactly in what year the insurrection took place, but it was, as Renan says, "pen de temps auparavant". The Egyptian himself contrived to run away and disappear; hence the thought that he was the author of this new tumult at Jerusalem. The Sicarii were a band of fanatical murderers, who, in the disturbed times preceding the destruction of Jerusalem, went about armed with daggers, and in broad daylight and in the public thoroughfares murdered whoever was obnoxious to them. Among others they murdered the high priest Jonathan at the instigation of Felix (Josephus, 'Ant. Jud.,' 20. 6.7; 'Bell. Jud.,' 2., 13.3).