Acts 4:23-28 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

And being let go Being dismissed from their examination by the rulers; they went to their own company Who, probably, were at this time met together, praying for them; and reported all that the chief priests had said Adding, no doubt, what they were enabled by the grace of God to reply to them, and how their trial issued. And when they heard that A divine inspiration coming upon all that were present in an extraordinary manner; they lifted up their voice to God with one accord All unanimously joining in the following petition, as being all influenced by the same spirit, though, perhaps, only one speaking in the name of the rest: or, as Dr. Doddridge supposes, all their voices joining by immediate inspiration, a circumstance which he thinks was graciously adapted to encourage them to suffer the greatest extremities in this cause. And said, Lord, thou art God, &c. The sense is, Lord, thou hast all power, and thy word is fulfilled: men rage against thee, but it is in vain. See notes on Psalms 2:1-5. For of a truth, &c. For we now see the prediction of thy servant David truly and literally accomplished; since against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed With the Holy Ghost and with power, to accomplish the glorious work of erecting thy kingdom among men; both Herod, &c., with the Gentiles The idolatrous heathen; and the people of Israel Professing to worship thee, the true God; were gathered together Combined in the impious attempt of opposing thy designs. For to do whatsoever thy hand, &c., determined before to be done That is, says Dr. Hammond, “the Roman governors and Jewish sanhedrim have joined their malicious counsels against thy holy Son; to act in the crucifying of him, and so (though little meaning it) to be the instruments of thy gracious providence and disposal, who didst determine to give thy only Son to die for us.” The sense evidently is, But they (the enemies of God and Christ) could do no more than thou wast pleased to permit, according to thy determinate counsel, to save mankind by the sufferings of thy Son. And what was needful for this end, thou didst before determine to permit to be done. Limborch, and some others, contend for a transposition of the words thus: They have combined against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed to do what thy hand and thy counsel had determined, &c.; but it is so expressly said elsewhere, (see Matthew 26:24; Luke 22:22,) that the Son of man went (to suffer and die) as it was determined; and it so plainly appears, in fact, that these circumstances were foretold, or marked out, in the prophecies of the Old Testament, that I see not, says Dr. Doddridge, “what end the admission of such a transposition would answer. It is much more rational to explain this determination in such a manner as to make it consistent with the free agency of the persons concerned. When God's hand and his counsel are said to have determined these things, it may signify his having pointed out this great event, so wisely concerted in his eternal counsels, and marked beforehand, as it were, all the boundaries of it, (as the word προωρισε may well signify,) in the prophetic writings.” Certainly the word properly and literally signifies, to define, describe, or mark out beforehand, rather than to decree, or predestinate. “The hand of God,” says Dr. Whitby, “most frequently, in the Old Testament, relates not so much to his power, as to his wisdom, and providential dispensations; and being here joined with his counsel, and applied to what was done by Pontius Pilate and the Jews toward the crucifixion of the holy Jesus, to which actions, so highly displeasing to God, his power could not actually concur or effectively incline them, the import of these words will be no more than this, that Jews and Gentiles were assembled to accomplish those sufferings of our Saviour for mankind which God had foretold, and by foretelling had determined should come to pass: according to those words of St. Paul, Acts 13:27, They who dwelt at Jerusalem, &c., not knowing the voices of the prophets, have fulfilled them by condemning him, doing all things which were written of him. As therefore St. Peter and Paul, by calling the Jews to repentance for crucifying the Lord of life, do evidence that their sin was not the less, because they did by it fulfil the counsel of God's holy will, and kind intentions to mankind, so do they consequently evidence, that God's foreknowledge of a thing future, does not impair the liberty of men's wills in the accomplishment of it; as all the ancient fathers have declared in this particular.” See this further explained in the note on Acts 2:23.