19:8-12 When arguments and persuasions only harden men in unbelief and blasphemy, we must separate ourselves and others from such unholy company. God was pleased to confirm the teaching of these holy men of old, that if their hearers believed them not, they might believe the works.

Verse 12. - Insomuch for so, A.V.; unto the sick were carried away from his body for from his body were brought unto the sick, A.V.; went out for went out of them, A.V. and T.R. From his body (χρωτός); literally, the skin, but used here by St. Luke for the body, in accordance with the usage of medical writers "from Hippocrates to Galen" (Hobart). Handkerchiefs; σουδάριον, the Latin word sudarium, properly a cloth for wiping off the sweat. It is one of those words, like κουστωδία κεντυρίων σημικίνθιον, κοδράντης, etc., which exactly represent the political condition of things at the time of the writers, who were living in a country where Greek was the language of common intercourse, but where the dominion was Roman. It is found in Luke 19:20; John 11:44; John 20:7, and here. Aprons; σιμικίνθια, more properly written σημικίνθια. It is the Latin word semicinctium, a half-girdle; the Greek word is ἡμιζώνιον. According to some, it was a narrow girdle, but according to others, and with more probability, an apron covering only half, i.e. the front of the body. It only occurs here in the New Testament or elsewhere. The careful mention of these cures of the sick may also be connected with St. Luke's medical profession. As regards these unusual modes of miraculous cure, comp. Acts 5:15. It might well be the Divine purpose, in the case of both Peter and Paul, to invest with such extraordinary power the very persons of the apostles who were to stand forth as his messengers and preach in his Name. In St. Paul this parity of miraculous energy stamped his apostleship with an authority equal to that of St. Peter.

So that from his body were brought unto the sick,.... The Ethiopic version renders it, "from the extremity", or "border of his garment"; and the Syriac version, "from the garments which were upon his body"; were brought and put upon the sick; that is, of the clothes which the apostle wore, some of them were taken and carried to sick persons, and used by them: particularly "handkerchiefs" or "aprons"; the former were such as he might use to wipe his face with, and remove sweat, or any filth from the body; and the latter, what he might wear as a mechanic, when working at his trade:

and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them; who were afflicted and possessed with them; these were some of the special and uncommon miracles wrought by the hands of the apostle, and which were wrought in an uncommon way; and which most clearly showed that they were wrought by a divine power.

12. So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, &c.—Compare Ac 5:15, 16, very different from the magical acts practiced at Ephesus. "God wrought these miracles" merely "by the hands of Paul"; and the very exorcists (Ac 19:13), observing that the name of Jesus was the secret of all his miracles, hoped, by aping him in this, to be equally successful; while the result of all in the "magnifying of the Lord Jesus" (Ac 19:17) showed that in working them the apostle took care to hold up Him whom he preached as the source of all the miracles which he wrought.

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