Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:
Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God - that is, delivered both by God's fixed purpose and by His perfect foresight of all the steps which that involved, Ye have [taken, and] by wicked hands have crucified and slain - rather, 'ye, by the hand of lawless persons, crucified and slew.' (The word rendered "ye have taken and" х labontes (G2983)] is lacking in authority, and the singular, 'hand,' is better supported than "hands.") The 'hand,' however, or agency by which the apostle here charges the Jews with crucifying the Lord of glory is not their own, but that of the Roman soldiers, under Pilate's directions (as nearly all good interpreters agree). These are called 'lawless persons' х anomoon (G459)] - as in 1 Corinthians 9:21, and 1 Corinthians 6:1, they are called "the unjust" х adikoi (G94)]. Three things are remarkable in this statement of the apostle: First, the courage which could charge upon an immense miscellaneous street-audience-in the calmest attitude, and in the most naked terms-the death of the Christ of God; and the man that did this had himself, but a few weeks before, quailed at the word of a maid in the high priest's palace. Second, the tenderness which temp ered this awful charge with the announcement of an eternal purpose of God in that very death, and so paved the way for the exhibition of this crucified Messiah as their now exalted Lord and Saviour. Third, the dread harmony with which one and the same event is presented as at once a deed of unparalleled criminality on men's part, and of fixed eternal decree on the part of God.