Acts 8:1 - Exposition

There arose on that day for at that time there was, A.V. ; in for at, A.V. Saul was consenting to his death . St. Paul's repeated reference to this sad episode in his life is very touching (see Acts 22:2 ,0; 1 Corinthians 15:9 ; 1 Timothy 1:13 ). (For the word συνευδοκεῖν , to consent, see Acts 22:20 ; Luke 11:48 ; Romans 1:32 ; 1 Corinthians 7:12 .) Arose on that day . The phrase is manifestly the Hebrew one, אוּההַ מוֹיּבַּ , so constantly used in Isaiah and the other prophets, not of a single day, but of a longer or shorter time, and means, as the A.V. has it, "at that time," not the particular Tuesday or Wednesday on which Stephen was killed. If St. Luke had meant to state that the persecution set in the very day on which Stephen was stoned, he would have expressed it much more pointedly, and used a different word from ἐγένετο . It is otherwise with Acts 2:41 and Luke 17:31 , where the context defines the meaning, and confines it to a specified day; just as the equivalent Hebrew phrase is as commonly applied to a literal day as to a time or period. The context shows which is the sense in which it is used. Here the thing spoken of, the persecution, did not take place on a day. It lasted many days. Therefore ἡμέρα means here "time." They were all scattered . Just as the wind blows the seed to a distance to fructify in different places. Except the apostles . They, like faithful watchmen, remained at their post, to confirm the souls of those disciples who for one reason or another were unable to flee (for of course the word all must not be pressed strictly), and to exhort them to continue in the faith, as St. Paul did later at Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch ( Acts 14:22 ), and to keep up the nucleus of the Church in the metropolis of Christendom.