Acts 3:7

And he took him by the right hand, and lifted him up: and immediately his feet and ancle bones received strength.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(7) His feet.—Better, his soles. The precision with which the process is described is characteristic of the medical historian. Both this term and the “ankle bones” employed are more or less technical, as is also the word rendered “received strength,” literally, were consolidated, the flaccid tissues and muscles being rendered firm and vigorous.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

3:1-11 The apostles and the first believers attended the temple worship at the hours of prayer. Peter and John seem to have been led by a Divine direction, to work a miracle on a man above forty years old, who had been a cripple from his birth. Peter, in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, bade him rise up and walk. Thus, if we would attempt to good purpose the healing of men's souls, we must go forth in the name and power of Jesus Christ, calling on helpless sinners to arise and walk in the way of holiness, by faith in Him. How sweet the thought to our souls, that in respect to all the crippled faculties of our fallen nature, the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth can make us whole! With what holy joy and rapture shall we tread the holy courts, when God the Spirit causes us to enter therein by his strength!

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And he took him - He took hold of his hand. To take hold of the hand in such a ease was an offer of aid, an indication that Peter was sincere, and was an inducement to him to make an effort. This may be employed as a beautiful illustration of the manner of God when he commands people to repent and believe. He does not leave them alone; he extends help, and aids their efforts. If they tremble, and feel that they are weak, and needy, and helpless, his hand is stretched out and his power exerted to impart strength and grace.

His feet and ankle-bones - The fact that strength was immediately imparted; that the feet, long lame, were now made strong, was a full and clear proof of miraculous power.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

7. And he took … and lifted him up—precisely what his Lord had done to his own mother-in-law (Mr 1:31).

his feet—"soles."

and ankle bones, &c.—the technical language of a physician (Col 4:14).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

He took him by the right hand; not disdaining to take hold of a poor cripple or beggar; as also being fully persuaded of Christ’s presence with him for his cure.

And immediately, that it might the more evidently appear that this was the work of God, who can without means, and on a sudden, bring aught to perfection,

his feet and ankle bones, whence his lameness did proceed, received strength: thus God can say unto the weak, Be strong.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And he took him by the right hand,.... In imitation of Christ, whom he had often seen using the same action on such occasions:

and lift him up; believing he was cured, and that it might be manifest. The word him is expressed in the Alexandrian copy, and in some others, and in the Oriental versions, which is a supplement in our translation:

and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength; where, it seems, his lameness lay. The Vulgate Latin renders it, his bases and soles, which may include his legs and thighs, as well as feet; and the Syriac version, "his feet and soles"; and the Arabic version, "his soles, and the muscles adjoining to his heels"; and the Ethiopic version furthest off of all, "he was strengthened in his feet, and in his loins"; his disorder might be of the paralytic kind.

Geneva Study Bible

And he took him by the right hand, and lifted him up: and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

Acts 3:7-8. Αὐτὸν τῆς δεξιᾶς] comp. Mark 9:27, and see Valckenaer, ad Theocr. iv. 35.

ἐστερεῶθησαν] his feet were strengthened, so that they now performed their function, for which they had been incapacitated in the state of lameness, of supporting the body in its movements.

αἱ βάσεις are the feet, as in Wis 13:18; Joseph. Antt. vii. 5. 5; Plat. Tim. p. 92 A, and in later Greek writers.

τὰ σφυρά: the anklebones, tali (very frequent in the classics), after the general expression subjoining the particular.

ἐξαλλόμενος] springing up, leaping into the air. Xen. Cyr. vii. 1. 32; Anab. vii. 3. 33; LXX. Isaiah 55:12. Not: exsiliens, videlicet e grabbato (Casaubon), of which last there is no mention.

καὶ εἰσῆλθε … τὸν θεόν] This behaviour bears the most natural impress of grateful attachment (comp. Acts 3:11), lively joy (περιπατ. καὶ ἁλλόμενος,—at the same time as an involuntary proof of his complete cure for himself and for others), and religious elevation. The view of Thiess—that the beggar was only a pretended cripple who was terrified by the threatening address of Peter into using his feet, and afterwards, for fear of the rage of the people, prudently attached himself to the apostles—changes the entire narrative, and makes the apostle himself (Acts 3:12; Acts 3:16; Acts 4:9-10) the deceiver. Peter had wrought the cure in the possession of that miraculous power of healing which Jesus had imparted to His apostles (Luke 9:1), and the supernatural result cannot in that case, any more than in any other miracle, warrant us to deny its historical character, as is done by Zeller, who supposes that the general χωλοὶ περιπατοῦσιν, Luke 7:22, Matthew 15:31, has here been illustrated in an individual instance.

Expositor's Greek Testament

Acts 3:7. πιάσας, cf. Acts 12:4 : so in LXX, Song of Solomon 2:15, Sir 23:21, A. al. χειρὸς very similar to, if not exactly, a partitive genitive, found after verbs of touching, etc., inasmuch as the touching affects only a part of the object (Mark 5:30), and so too often after verbs of taking hold of, the part or the limit grasped is put in the genitive, Mark 5:41 (accusative being used when the whole person is seized, Matthew 14:3), Blass, Grammatik des N. G., p. 100, cf. classical use in Eurip., Hec., 523. The meaning of πιάζω in N.T. and in the LXX has passed into modern Greek = πιάνω = seize, apprehend (Kennedy). For a similar use see also 2 Corinthians 11:32, Revelation 19:20, and John 7:30; John 7:32-33; John 7:44; John 8:20; John 10:39; John 11:57; John 21:3; John 21:10.—παραχρῆμα, i.e., παρὰ τὸ χρῆμα, forthwith, immediately, auf der Stelle, on the spot, specially characteristic of St. Luke, both in Gospel and Acts (cf. εὐθύς of St. Mark). It is found no less than ten times in the Gospel, and six to seven times in Acts, elsewhere in N.T. only twice, Matthew 21:19-20; several times in LXX, Wis 18:17, Tob 8:3, ., 2Ma 4:34; 2Ma 4:38, etc., 4Ma 14:9, Bel and the Dragon, ver. 39, 42, Theod., and in Numbers 6:9; Numbers 12:4, [138] [139] [140]., Isaiah 29:5, for Hebrew, פִּתְאֹם; frequent in Attic prose; see also Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, pp. 22, 29. But as the word is so manifestly characteristic of St. Luke it is noteworthy that in the large majority of instances it is employed by him in connection with miracles of healing or the infliction of disease and death, and this frequency of use and application may be paralleled by the constant employment of the word in an analogous way in medical writers; see, e.g., Hobart, Medical Language of St. Luke, and instances in Hippocrates, Galen, Dioscorides.—ἐστερεώθησαν: στερεόω = to make firm or solid; it cannot by any means be regarded only as a technical medical term, but as a matter of fact it was often employed in medical language (so also the adjective στερεός), and this use of the word makes it a natural one for a medical man to employ here, especially in connection with βάσεις and σφυρά. It is used only by St. Luke in the N.T. (Acts 3:16 and Acts 16:5), but very frequently in the LXX. The nearest approach to a medical use of the word is given perhaps by Wetstein, in loco, Xen., Pæd., viii.—αἱ βάσεις, “the feet” (βαίνω). The word is constantly used in LXX, but for the most part in the sense of something upon which a thing may rest, but it is found in the same sense as here in Wis 13:18; cf. also Jos., Ant., vii., 3, 5, so in Plato, Timæus, 92, A. It was in frequent use amongst medical men, and its employment here, and here only in the N.T., with the mention of the other details, e.g., the more precise σφυρά, “anklebones,” also only found in this one passage in N.T., has been justly held to point to the technical description of a medical man; see not only Hobart, p. 34 ff., u. s., and Belcher’s Miracles of Healing, p. 41, but Bengel, Zöckler, Rendall, Zahn.

[138] Codex Alexandrinus (sæc. v.), at the British Museum, published in photographic facsimile by Sir E. M. Thompson (1879).

[139] Codex Vaticanus (sæc. iv.), published in photographic facsimile in 1889 under the care of the Abbate Cozza-Luzi.

[140] Codex Cryptoferratensis (sæc. vii.), a palimpsest fragment containing chap. Acts 11:9-19, edited by Cozza in 1867, and cited by Tischendorf.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

7. his feet and ankle bones] The words in the original are found nowhere else in the N. T. They are of a technical character, and their use, together with the other features of exact description of the cripple’s case, indicate that we have before us the language of the physician (Colossians 4:14). And it is hardly possible to dwell too strongly on indications of this kind, which indirectly mark in the history something which is likewise noted in the Epistles. Those who would assign the second century as the date of the composition of the Acts, must assume for their supposed writer the keenest appreciation of every slight allusion in the letters of St Paul, and at the same time an ability to let his knowledge peep out only in hints like that which we find in this verse. Such persons, while rejecting all that is miraculous in the story as we have it, ask us to believe in such a writer as would himself be almost a miracle, for his powers of observation and the skill with which he has employed them.

received strength] Though from want of use, they must have been withered before.

Bengel's Gnomen

Acts 3:7. Αὐτὸν, him) It was the part of the blind man merely to give himself up to the power which was entering into him.—αἱ βάσεις καὶ τὰ σφυρὰ) As to both Greek words there is much disputation. Luke implies that all the parts in the lame man were strengthened, so as to enable him to walk. Βάσεις are the Feet, which have their principal strength in the knees: σφυρὰ, by a catachresis, are used to express the ankles, as in Callimachus, οὐδὲν ἐπὶ σφυρὸν ὀρθὸν ἀνέστη: strictly, little mallets, or the lowest parts of the leg. Luke, as being a physician, expressed himself accurately. Comp. Psalm 18:36, “Thou hast enlarged my steps under me, that my feet (margin, ankles) did not slip.”

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 7. - Raised for lifted, A.V.; his ankle-bones for ancle bones, A.V. St. Luke's medical knowledge discerns the cause of the lameness - a weakness in the anklebones. Acts 3:7

Vincent's Word Studies

He took (πιάσας)

The verb means originally to press or squeeze; and hence implies taking hold with a firm grasp.

Feet (βάσεις)

A peculiar, technical word, used by Luke only, and described by Galen as the part of the foot lying beneath the leg, upon which the leg directly rests, as distinguished from the ταρσὸς, the flat of the foot between the toes and heel, and πεδίον, the part next the toes.

Ankle-bones (σφυρά)

Only here in New Testament. Also technical. Some of the best texts read σφυδρά, but the meaning is the same.

Received strength (ἐστερεώθησαν)

Used by Luke only. Compare "the churches were established (Acts 16:5), and the kindred noun στερέωμα, steadfastness (Colossians 2:5). In medical language applied to the bones in particular.