Acts 2:23 - Exposition

Delivered up for delivered, A.V.; by the hand of lawless men did crucify and slay for have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain, A.V. and T.R. The determinate counsel . God's counsel, that Christ should suffer for sins, was not a vague, indistinct purpose, leaving much to accident and the fluctuating will of man; it was determinate and defined in respect of time and manner and the instruments used for carrying it out. Foreknowledge is coupled with counsel or will, perhaps in order to show us that the counsel or will of God, as far as it comprehends the action of free agents, is indissolubly connected with his foreknowledge, and does not involve any force put upon the will of man. (Compare, with Chrysostom, the saying of Joseph to his brethren, "Be not angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life" ( Genesis 45:5 ); also 14:4 ; 1 Kings 12:15 , etc. Delivered up ( ἔκδοτον , only found here) is by many understood of the action of Judas in betraying Jesus into the hands of his enemies ( John 19:11 )— ἔκδοτον being taken as equivalent to what πρόδοτον would mean if it were in use. But it may with equal propriety be applied to the action of the chief priests and elders in delivering Jesus to Pontius Pilate ( Matthew 27:2 )to be crucified ( Matthew 27:26 ). Our Lord himself alludes to Pilate's power as circumscribed by the will of God ( John 19:11 , ὁ παραδιδούς μέ σοι : comp. Matthew 26:45 ). By the hand of lawless men . "By the hand of" is the common Hebrew phrase ריַבְ , by means of, through the agency of. The Jewish nation ( ἄνδρες ἰουδαῖοι ) had crucified the Lord of glory by the hand of the heathen Romans. Lawless, equivalent to the sinners of Matthew 26:45 (comp., for the special application of the term to the heathen, Galatians 2:15 ; Galatians 1:1-24 Cos. 9:21).