Acts 28:8 - Exposition

It was so for it came to pass, A.V.; fever for a fever, A.V.; dysentery for of a bloody flux, A.V.; unto for to, A.V.; and laying, etc., healed for and laid, etc., and healed, A.V. The father of Publius . The fact of the father of Publius being alive and living in Malta is a further indication that the term ὁ πρῶτος τῆς νήσου is an official title. Lay sick . συνέχεσθαι is also the usual medical expression for being taken sick of any disease. It is used by St. Luke, with πυρετῴ ( Luke 4:38 ), and in the same sense in Matthew 4:24 . Lay. κατακεῖσθαι is used especially of lying in bed from sickness. It answers to decumbo in Latin. Sick of fever and dysentery ( πυρετοῖς καὶ δυσεντερία συνεχόμενον ) . The terms here used are all professional ones. πυρετός , in the plural, is of frequent occurrence in Hippocrates, Aretaeus, and Galen, but elsewhere in the New Testament always in the singular; δυσεντερία , only found here in the New Testament, is the regular technical word for a "dysentery," and is frequently in medical writers coupled with πυρετοί or πυρετός , as indicating different stages of the same illness. Laying his hands on him . So Mark 16:18 , "They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover". It is also spoken of as an accompaniment of prayer in confirmation, ordination, etc. It has been remarked as curious that the two actions of taking up serpents and healing the sick by the laying on of hands should be in such close juxtaposition both hero and in Mark 16:18 . It suggests the thought whether Luke had seen the passage in St. Mark; or whether the writer of Mark 16:18 had seen Acts 28:8 . Or is the coincidence accidental, arising out of the facts?