Acts 1:4 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Acts 1:4
And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me.
to hear (in various senses) · verb — aorist active indicative, 2nd person plural
of me
μοῦmoû
G3450
of me
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Luke 24:49 And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.
John 14:16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
John 15:26 But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he sh…
John 14:26-28 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to you…
Luke 12:12 For the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what ye ought to say.
John 7:39 (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus wa…
Acts 2:33 Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this,…
Luke 11:13 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to the…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Acts 1:1-5
In these verses, I. Theophilus is put in mind, and we in him, of St. Luke's gospel, which it will be of use for us to cast an eye upon before we enter upon the study of this book, that we may not only see how this begins where that breaks off, but that, as in water face answers to face, so do the acts of the apostles to the acts of their Master, the acts of his grace.
1. His patron, to whom he dedicates this book (I should rather say his pupil, for he designs, in dedicating it to him, to instruct and direct him, and not to crave his countenance or protection), is Theophilus, Act 1:1. In the epistle dedicatory before his gospel, he had called him most excellent Theophilus; here he calls him n…
should not depart from Jerusalem--because the Spirit was to glorify the existing economy, by descending on the disciples at its metropolitan seat, and at the next of its great festivals after the ascension of the Church's Head; in order that "out of Zion might go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem" (Isa 2:3; and compare Luk 24:49).
Adam Clarke on Acts 1:4
And, being assembled together - Instead of συναλιζομενος, being assembled together, several good MSS. and versions read συναυλιζομενος, living or eating together, which refers the conversation reported here to some particular time, when he sat at meat, with his disciples. See Mar 16:14 : Luk 24:41-44. But probably the common reading is to be preferred; and the meeting on a mountain of Galilee is what is here meant.
The promise of the Father - The Holy Spirit, which indeed was the grand promise of the New Testament, as Jesus Christ was of the Old. And as Christ was the grand promise of the Old Testament, during the whole continuance of the old covenant; so is the Holy Ghost, during the whole…
And being assembled together with them,.... At their last meeting at Bethany, or Mount Olivet, which was by appointment: some render the words, as the Vulgate Latin, "and eating with them"; which was one of the proofs he gave of his being alive; and so the Syriac version renders it, "and when he had ate bread with them", and the Ethiopic version, "and dining with them", which he might do more than once; see John 21:12 this was the last time, when he
commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem; which does not necessarily infer, that they were then at Jerusalem; for they might be, and they seem rather to be at Bethany, or on the Mount of Olives, from whence they afterwards retur…
The Church Fathers
Consuming and drinking, that is, sharing salt, sharing the table.
The promise of the Father. And where did the Father promise this? We say, then, that either through omission, from the preposition "from," the expression must be understood so that it means, to wait for the promise from the Father, which I made to you of the Holy Spirit; or also that, as he himself says, what I have heard from the Father, these things I proclaim to you. And the promise of the Holy Spirit, although it came through Him, was also from the Father. And if you seek the Spirit from Him, Joel guarantees the word to be trusted, saying, "I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh." (Joel 2:28)
Not to depart from Jerusalem, Jesus encouraged them, wishing to establish the account of the resurrection more firmly for them through the miracles, which were done by the request of the crucified one, through the sufferings which they endured at the hands of the Jews, yet they did not depart from the friendship of the crucified and risen one, but rather died for him. For if they had immediately separated from Jerusalem, and nothing followed from them, the resurrection would have been suspicious. Likewise, many were about to trust there. At the same time, it was necessary to wait for them, so that some would not say that, having left their associates, they came to boast among strangers. And also, not yet having been armored with the power of the Spirit, they would become useless against the entanglements of their opponents.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Bartholomew — Son of Tolmai, one of the twelve apostles (Matt. 10:3; Acts 1:13); generally supposed to have been the same as Nathanael. In the synoptic gospels Philip and Bartholomew are always mentioned together,…
Resurrection of Christ — One of the cardinal facts and doctrines of the gospel. If Christ be not risen, our faith is vain (1 Cor. 15:14). The whole of the New Testament revelation rests on this as an historical fact. On the…
Apostles, The · Witnesses of the resurrection and ascension of Christ — Witnesses of the resurrection and ascension of Christ
Jerusalem · Miraculous gift of the Holy Spirit first given at — Miraculous gift of the Holy Spirit first given at
Promises Of God, The · Should wait for the performance of — Should wait for the performance of
Waiting · For the fulfillment of his promises — For the fulfillment of his promises
Waiting Upon God · For: The fulfillment of His promises — For: The fulfillment of His promises
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Acts 1:3-5
3. To whom also he showed himself alive, after that he had suffered, in many proofs, while that he is seen of them by the space o f forty days, and he intreateth of the kingdom of God. 4. And when he had gathered them together, he commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but that they should wait for the promise of the Father; whereof, saith he, ye have heard of me: 5. Because John truly baptized with water; but you shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost, after a few days.
3. Unto whom, etc He addeth this, that he might make the resurrection to be believed, as a thing most necessary to be known, and without the which the whole gospel falleth fiat to the ground,…
