Acts 28:4 - Exposition

Beast for venomous beast, A.V.; hanging from for hang on, A.V.; one to another for among themselves, A.V.; escaped from for escaped, A.V.; justice for vengeance, A.V. ; hath not suffered for suffereth not, A.V. The beast ( τὸ θηρίον ). It is peculiar to medical writers to use θηρίον as synonymous with ἔχιδνα , a viper. So also θηριόδηκτος , bit by a viper, θηριακή , an antidote to the bite of a viper (Dioscorides, Galen, etc.). Justice ( ἥ δίκη ). In Greek mythology Dice (Justitia) was the daughter and assessor of Zeus, and the avenger of crime. In her train was Poena, of whom Horace says," Rare antecedeutem scelcstum Deseruit pede Poena claude " ('Od.,' 3.2, 32). "The idea of Dice as justice personified is most perfectly developed in the dramas of Sophocles and Euripides" (article "Dice," in 'Dict. of Greek and Roman Biog. and Mythol.'). It does not appear whether the islanders had learned the name and office of Dice from the Greeks in Sicily, or whether they had any native divinity whose name St. Luke translates into that of Dice. The gods whose names are found in ancient Maltese inscriptions are Melkarth, another name of Hercules, the tutelar god of Tyre; Osiris, and Baal. Other Phoenician divinities are named in the Carthaginian inscriptions (see Gesenius, 'Monument. Phoenic.'). Had not suffered. They assume that death will certainly follow from the bite.