Acts 28:6 - Exposition

But they expected that he would for howbeit, they looked when he should, A.V.; when they were long in expectation for after they had looked a great while, A.V.; beheld nothing amiss for stay no harm, A.V. They expected ; προσεδόκων . This word is used eleven times by St. Luke, twice by St. Matthew, and three times in the Second Epistle of Peter (see Acts 3:5 ; Luke 1:21 , etc.). It is also common in the LXX . But it is a word much employed by medical writers in speaking of the course they expect a disease to take, and the results they look for. And this is the more remarkable here because there are no fewer than three other medical phrases in this verse, τίμπρασθαι καταπίπτειν , and μηδὲν ἄτοπον , be sides those immediately preceding διεξέρχεσθαι (according to several good manuscripts anti editions) θέρμη καθάπτειν , and θηρίον . So that it looks as if, having once got into a medical train of thought from the subject he was writing about, medical language naturally came uppermost in his mind. Have swollen ; πίμπρασθαι , only here in the Bible, and not found in this sense in older classical writers. But it is the usual medical word for "inflammation" in any part of the body. Fallen down ; καταπίπτειν , only here and in Acts 26:14 , and twice in the LXX .; but common in Homer and elsewhere, and especially frequent in medical writers of persons falling down in fits, or weakness, or wounded, or the like. Nothing amiss ( μηδὲν ἄτοπον ) . Mr. Hobart quotes a remarkable parallel to this phrase from Damocrites, quoted by Galen. He says that whosoever, having been bitten by a mad dog, drinks a certain antidote ( εἰς οὐδὲν ἄτοπον ἐμπεσοῦται ῥᾳδίως ), "shall suffer no harm." It is used in medical writers in two senses—of" unusual symptoms," and of fatal consequences. In the New Testament it only occurs elsewhere in Luke 23:1-56 . 41, "Nothing amiss;" and 2 Thessalonians 3:2 , ἀτόπων καὶ πονηρῶν ἀνθρώπων . It is also used in the LXX . for wickedness, doing wickedly, etc. They changed their minds ; as in an opposite direction the Lycaonians did ( Acts 14:11 , Acts 14:19 ). It is a graphic picture of the fickleness of an untutored mind yielding to every impulse. The impunity with which St. Paul endured the bite of the viper was a direct fulfillment of our Lord's promise in Mark 16:18 .