Acts 18:6 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Acts 18:6
And when they opposed themselves, and blasphemed, he shook his raiment, and said unto them, Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean; from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles.
a dress (inner or outer) · noun — accusative plural neuter
said
εἶπενeipen
G2036
to speak or say (by word or writing) · verb — second aorist active indicative, 3rd person singular
unto
πρὸςpros
G4314
a preposition of direction · preposition
them
αὐτούς·autous
G846
the reflexive pronoun self · personal pronoun — accusative plural masculine
Your
ὑμῶνhymōn
G5216
of (from or concerning) you
blood
αἷμαhaima
G129
blood · noun — nominative singular neuter
upon
ἐπὶepi
G1909
properly · preposition
own
ὑμῶνhymōn
G5216
of (from or concerning) you
heads
κεφαλὴνkephalēn
G2776
the head (as the part most readily taken hold of) · noun — accusative singular feminine
I
ἐγώ·egō
G1473
I · personal pronoun — 1st person nominative singular
clean
καθαρὸςkatharos
G2513
clean (literally or figuratively) · adjective — nominative singular masculine
from
ἀπὸapo
G575
"off · preposition
henceforth
νῦνnun
G3568
"now" (as adverb of date · adverb
go
πορεύσομαι.¶poreusomai
G4198
to traverse · verb — future middle deponent indicative, 1st person singular
unto
εἰςeis
G1519
to or into (indicating the point reached or entered) · preposition
Gentiles
ἔθνηethnē
G1484
a race (as of the same habit) · noun — accusative plural neuter
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
Ezekiel 33:4 Then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning; if the sword come, and take him away, his blood shall be upon his o…
2 Samuel 1:16 And David said unto him, Thy blood be upon thy head; for thy mouth hath testified against thee, saying, I have slain the LORD’s anointed.
Ezekiel 33:8-9 When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man sha…
Ezekiel 18:13 Hath given forth upon usury, and hath taken increase: shall he then live? he shall not live: he hath done all these abominations; he shall s…
Nehemiah 5:13 Also I shook my lap, and said, So God shake out every man from his house, and from his labour, that performeth not this promise, even thus b…
Acts 13:51 But they shook off the dust of their feet against them, and came unto Iconium.
1 Peter 4:4 Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you:
Luke 9:5 And whosoever will not receive you, when ye go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet for a testimony against them.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Acts 18:1-6
We do not find that Paul was much persecuted at Athens, nor that he was driven thence by any ill usage, as he was from those places where the Jews had or could make any interest; but this reception at Athens being cold, and little prospect of doing good there, he departed from Athens, leaving the care of those there who believed with Dionysius; and thence he came to Corinth, where he was now instrumental in planting a church that became on many accounts considerable. Corinth was the chief city of Achaia, now a province of the empire, a rich and splendid city. Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum - It is not permitted every man to see Corinth. The country thereabouts at this day is cal…
Your blood be upon your own heads, &c.--See Eze 33:4, Eze 33:9.
from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles--Compare Act 13:46.
Adam Clarke on Acts 18:6
When they opposed - Αντιτασσομενων, Systematically opposing, putting themselves in warlike order against him: so the word implies.
And blasphemed - This is precisely the way in which they still act. They have no arguments against Jesus being the Messiah; but, having made a covenant with unbelief, as soon as they are pressed on this point, they rail and blaspheme. - See the Tela ignea Satanae, by Wagenseil.
He shook his raiment - This was an action similar to that of shaking the dust of the feet; see on Mat 10:14 (note). See a parallel act, and its signification, in Neh 5:13 : Also I Shook My Lap, and said, So shall God Shake every man From His House and From his Labor; even thus shall he be…
And when they opposed themselves,.... To the truth, and contradicted themselves in many instances, and their own prophecies; or those books which they themselves allowed to be the oracles of God, and blasphemed both Christ, and the apostle, and the doctrine which he taught; and railed at him, and spoke evil of him, and used him in a very contumelious and reproachful manner, as they were used from contradicting to go to blaspheming; see Acts 13:45
he shook his raiment; his outer garment, and the dust off from it, as a testimony against them; see Matthew 10:14
and said unto them, your blood be upon your heads; meaning, that they were the authors of their own ruin and destruction; that they c…
The Church Fathers
"Your blood be on your own heads." These words are obscure, but I think they mean this: Whoever does not believe in Christ, who is life, seems to kill himself by passing from life to death and shedding, as it were, his own blood through his self-inflicted death. Therefore he means that when you kill yourselves through disbelief, you receive the punishment of murder, so I am innocent. Following this train of thought it may be also said that he who kills himself is punished by God as a murderer. Similarly if a person is the reason why someone kills himself, he will be guilty in the same way.
"Your blood be on your own head." This is what Paul says, casting off his garments, so that one should fear not only the word but the deed as well. Therefore, having said this more strongly, "Your blood be on your own head," he departs from them. And he means this: each of those who apostatize from Christ, who is Life, seems to slay himself, passing from life into death, in a sense pouring out his own blood by the slaughter he brings upon himself. Therefore he says, "Instead of slaying yourselves through unbelief, you promise justice for this very thing, while I am innocent." From this it is clear that the one who slays himself is punished as a murderer by God. [CHRYSOSTOM]
What then does Paul? He separates from them, and in a very awful manner: and though he does not now say, "It was need that the word should be spoken unto you," yet he darkly intimates it to them: "and when they opposed themselves, and blasphemed, he shook his raiment, and said unto them, Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean: from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles." For wherefore having left that house did he come to live hard by the synagogue? was it not for this? For it was not that he saw any danger here. But therefore it is that Paul having testified to them--not teaches now, but testifies--"having shaken his garments," to terrify them not by word only but by action, "said unto them, Your blood be upon your own heads": he speaks the more vehemently as having already persuaded many. "I," says he, "am clean." Then we also are accountable for the blood of those entrusted to us, if we neglect them. "From this time forth I will go to the Gentiles." So that also when he says, "Henceforth let no man trouble me," he says it to terrify. For not so much did the punishment terrify, as this stung them.
Dictionary and topics
Blasphemy — In the sense of speaking evil of God this word is found in Ps. 74:18; Isa. 52:5; Rom. 2:24; Rev. 13:1, 6; 16:9, 11, 21. It denotes also any kind of calumny, or evil-speaking, or abuse (1 Kings 21:10;…
Dress — (1.) Materials used. The earliest and simplest an apron of fig-leaves sewed together (Gen. 3:7); then skins of animals (3:21). Elijah’s dress was probably the skin of a sheep (2 Kings 1:8). The…
Call Of God, The · Withdrawal of the means of grace — Withdrawal of the means of grace
Gentiles · CONVERSION OF — CONVERSION OF
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 18:6-11
6. And when they gainsayed him, and railed upon him, shaking his garments, he said unto them, Your blood be upon your own head; I will go henceforth clean unto the Gentiles. 7. And going thence, he entered into the house of a certain man named Justus, a worshipper of God, whose house joined to the synagogue. 8. And Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord with all his household: and many of the Corinthians which heard believed, and were baptized. 9. And the Lord said by night, by a vision, to Paul, Fear not, but speak, and hold not thy peace: 10. Because I am with thee, and no man shall lay hand on thee to hurt thee: because I have much people in this cit…
Once again Paul followed his custom of preaching to the Jews first, and then reaching out to Gentiles after he met with rejection and opposition (13:42-49; see 3:25-26; 26:20; Rom 1:16; 2:10; 3:29, 30; 4:9-12). • Paul probably wrote his letters to the Thessalonian Christians after Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia with a report of how things were going there (see 1 Thes 3:6; 2 Thessalonians Book Introduction, “Setting”).