Acts 5:1,2 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Bible Comments

But a certain man named Ananias A professor of the gospel, but certainly not a true believer, for all that truly believed were of one heart and of one soul, Acts 4:32. Probably he was not yet baptized, but intended now to offer himself for baptism; with Sapphira his wife Who concurred with him; sold a possession So the word κτημα, here used, properly signifies: what sort of a possession it was, we are not informed: for the word χωριον, (used Acts 5:8, and rendered land,) does not necessarily mean so, but simply, a place, of any kind, and might be a house or houses. He pretended, it seems, to imitate the zeal and liberality of Barnabas, chap. Acts 4:37; and kept back Greek, ενοσφισατο, fraudulently secreted, or purloined, part of the price While he brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles' feet Publicly, as if it had been the whole, perhaps saying it was so. It has been supposed by many, that Ananias and Sapphira had consecrated their estate to God by vow, and that they were guilty of the sin of sacrilege. But this is not probable; 1st, Because in all the sales of lands or houses, mentioned in the preceding Chapter s and here, there is not the least intimation of any such vow. 2d, Peter neither accuses him nor his wife of any such crime, but only of tempting, that is, distrusting and making trial of the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, and attempting to deceive him by an artifice. 3d, The apostle acknowledges (Act 5:3) that the property was his, and at his disposal, before it was sold, and the whole price of it afterward, which could not have been the case, if he had before consecrated it to religious uses. But yet they were guilty of a double fraud; 1st, In presenting this part of the price to the apostles, as if it had been the whole, when, indeed, it was not. 2d, In tacitly signifying hereby that they had now the same right to be relieved from the common stock which others had, as having nothing of their own, when, indeed, they had money which they had kept back.

Acts 5:1-2

1 But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession,

2 And kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles' feet.