Acts 1:16,17 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Men and brethren Though our Lord never addressed the people thus, (perhaps because it would have implied an equality not suitable to the dignity of his character,) yet the apostles frequently did, when they spoke to Jews or Christians, but never when speaking to the Gentiles. This implies, that they recognised a two-fold relation to their own countrymen, “as men of the same nature, descended from Adam; and as brethren of the same favoured family, as descended from Abraham.” Scott. This scripture must needs have been fulfilled Two prophecies are afterward quoted for this purpose, Acts 1:20, from Psalms 69:25; Psalms 109:8; (on which passages see the notes;) and it has been matter of much debate, whether they do, in their original sense, refer to Judas or to the enemies of David. It is certain the sixty-ninth Psalm is not to be confined to Judas; for Paul (Rom 11:9-10) has quoted the 22d and 23d verses of it as applicable to the unbelieving Jews in general: and “there are so many passages in both these psalms more applicable to David than to Christ, that I was very inclinable,” says Dr. Doddridge, “to render the words before us thus: The scripture which the Holy Ghost spake before, by the mouth of David, must necessarily have been fulfilled concerning Judas, &c.; and to have explained them as if the apostle had said, ‘That vengeance which David foretold, as to be executed on his enemies, must much more fall on Judas, whose perfidious and cruel attack on Christ himself rendered him so much more criminal.' But it is certain, the order of the Greek words will not naturally admit this interpretation. I therefore conclude that, while David prophesied of the calamities which should befall his persecutors, it was revealed to him by the Holy Spirit, that the enemies and murderers of the Messiah should inherit those curses in all their terror, and be yet more miserable than the persons on whom they were more immediately to fall. This fact I take to be asserted in these words, as what was revealed by the same Spirit to the Apostle Peter:” an interpretation “which may serve as a key to many other passages of the New Testament.”