Acts 20:20 - Exposition

How that I shrank not from declaring unto you anything for and how I kept back nothing, A.V.; profitable for profitable unto you, A.V and teaching for but have showed you and have taught, A.V. I shrank not from declaring , etc. The R.V. seems to construe the phrase as if it were ὡς ὑπεσταιλάμην τοῦ μὴ ἀναγγεῖλαι ὑμῖν οὐδὲν τῶν συμφερόντων , which is a very labored construction, of which the only advantage is that it gives exactly the same sense to ὑπεστειλάμην as it has in Acts 20:27 . But it is much simpler to take οὐδὲν here as governed by ὑπεστειλάμην , and to take the verb in its very common sense of "keeping back," or "dissembling" (see the very similar passages quoted by Kuinoel from Demosthenes, Plato, Socrates, etc., οὐδὲν ὑποστειλάμενος , μηδὲν ὑποστείλαμεμος κ . τ . λ .), and to take the τοῦ μὴ ἀναγγεῖλαι ὑμῖν καὶ διδάξαι as expressing what would have been the effect of such "keeping back," or "dissembling," the μὴ extending to both infinitives (Meyer), "so as not to declare and teach," etc. In Acts 20:27 the verb ὑπεστειλάμην must be taken in the equally common sense of "holding back," or "shrinking," under the influence of fear, or indolence, or what not. The difference of rendering is required by the fact that here you have οὐδὲν ὑπεστειλάμην , whereas in Acts 20:27 you have οὐκ ὑπεστειλάμην In several of the classical passages quoted above, and others in Schleusner, ὑποστέλλεσθαι is opposed to παρρησίαζεσθαι , or, μετὰ παρρησίας διαλεχθῆναι (comp. therefore for the sentiment, Acts 2:29 ; Acts 4:13 , Acts 4:29 , Acts 4:31 ; Acts 9:27 ; Acts 13:46 ; Acts 14:3 ; Acts 28:31 , etc.; Ephesians 6:19 , Ephesians 6:20 ).