Atos 4:13

13. Boldness There was in their style both of action and language a clear, calm freedom; not as if they strained themselves to hardihood, but as if they were unconscious of any demand for nerve. It was quiet self-possession, as if they were speaking respectfully and evenly to equals.

Unlearned Not literati, but men of the ordinary education.

Ignorant Not a very correct translation. The word signifies that they were not priests, but laymen; not magistrates, but private men; not rabbis, but non-professional men.

Took knowledge This does not mean (with Meyer and Dr. Gloag) that they now for the first time caught the idea that these men were followers of Jesus. This was known before they were apprehended, (Acts 4:2,) (Caiaphas and John were acquaintances, John 18:15,) and was the reason for their apprehension. Nor is there any thing that indicates (as Alford) that the memory of the court was now so awakened as to recollect the having seen them with Jesus; which would have been a fact of no significance. The Greek word signifies fully to know, to recognize, realize, appreciate. These very judges, Annas and Caiaphas, had but a few short weeks previously seen Jesus himself before them. And in these men, filled with the spirit of Jesus, they recognized and appreciated the same clear, divine self-possession and unshrinking retort, and they referred these qualities to their intimacy with the Master.

With Jesus The preposition with was often used by the Greeks to express the attendance of inferiors upon a superior, as “Xenophon and those with him.”