Acts 5:41 - Clarke's commentary and critical notes on the Bible

And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. Rejoicing that they there counted worthy, etc. - The whole verse may be read thus: But they departed rejoicing from the presence of the sanhedrin, because they there deemed worthy to be dishonored on account of The Name. The word, αυτου, his, is omitted by ABCD, several others; Erpen's Syriac, and the Coptic. The Name, probably, by this time, distinguished both the author of salvation and the sacred system of doctrine which the apostles preached. To rejoice in persecution, and triumph in the midst of pain, shame, disgrace, and various threatened deaths, is the privilege of the New Testament. Nothing of this kind, as far as I can recollect, appears even in the choicest saints under the Old Testament dispensation. Some of them fretted and mourned, and sometimes even murmured; some merely possessed their souls in patience; Christians exulted and triumphed in the God of their salvation. This is no mean proof of the additional light and evidence which the New Testament dispensation affords.