Acts 26:18 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Acts 26:18
To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.
the accuser · noun — genitive singular masculine, a title
unto
ἐπὶepi
G1909
properly · preposition
God
θεόν,theon
G2316
figuratively · noun — accusative singular masculine, a title
they
αὐτοὺςautous
G846
the reflexive pronoun self · personal pronoun — accusative plural masculine
may receive
λαβεῖνlabein
G2983
while G138 (αἱρέομαι) is more violent · verb — second aorist active infinitive
forgiveness
ἄφεσινaphesin
G859
freedom · noun — accusative singular feminine
of sins
ἁμαρτιῶνhamartiōn
G266
a sin (properly abstract) · noun — genitive plural feminine
and
καὶkai
G2532
and · conjunction
inheritance
κλῆρονklēron
G2819
a die (for drawing chances) · noun — accusative singular masculine
among
ἐνen
G1722
"in · preposition
them which
τῆςtēs
G3588
the (sometimes to be supplied · article — genitive singular feminine
are sanctified
ἡγιασμένοιςhēgiasmenois
G37
to make holy · verb — perfect passive participle, dative plural masculine
by faith
πίστειpistei
G4102
persuasion · noun — dative singular feminine
that is in
εἰςeis
G1519
to or into (indicating the point reached or entered) · preposition
me
ἐμέemé
G1691
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
1 Peter 2:9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath…
Ephesians 1:18 The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his…
Acts 20:32 And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among a…
Ephesians 5:8 For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:
Isaiah 42:7 To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.
2 Corinthians 4:6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God…
Colossians 1:12-14 Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:
John 8:12 Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the l…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Acts 26:12-23
All who believe a God, and have a reverence for his sovereignty, must acknowledge that those who speak and act by his direction, and by warrant from him, are not to be opposed; for that is fighting against God. Now Paul here, by a plain and faithful narrative of matters of fact, makes it out to this august assembly that he had an immediate call from heaven to preach the gospel of Christ to the Gentile world, which was the thing that exasperated the Jews against him. He here shows,
I. That he was made a Christian by a divine power, notwithstanding all his prejudices against that way. He was brought into it on a sudden by the hand of heaven; not compelled to confess Christ by outward force, as…
To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light--rather, "that they may turn" (as in Act 26:20), that is, as the effect of their eyes being opened. The whole passage leans upon Isa 61:1 (Luk 4:18).
and from the power of Satan--Note the connection here between being "turned from darkness" and "from the power of Satan," whose whole power over men lies in keeping them in the dark: hence he is called "the ruler of the darkness of this world." See on Co2 4:4.
that they may receive forgiveness . . . and inheritance among the sanctified by faith that is in me--Note: Faith is here made the instrument of salvation at once in its first stage, forgiveness, and its last, admission to the…
To open their eyes - To be the instrument of informing their understanding in the things of God.
To turn them from darkness to light - From heathenism and superstition to the knowledge and worship of the true God.
From the power of Satan unto God - Της εξουσιας του Σατανα, From the authority and domination of Satan; for as the kingdom of darkness is his kingdom, so those who live in this darkness are under his dominion; and he has authority and right over them. The blessed Gospel of Christ is the means of bringing the soul from this state of spiritual darkness and wretchedness to the light and liberty of the children of God; and thus they are brought from under the power and authority of Sat…
The Church Fathers
Observe how mildly he discourses-God, he says, said this to me, "that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are-sanctified by faith that is in Me." By these things, says he, I was persuaded, by this vision He drew me to Himself, and so persuaded me, that I made no delay.
Whence, again, David said that "the Lord would reign from the tree: " for elsewhere, too, the prophet predicts the fruit of this "tree," saying "The earth hath given her blessings," -of course that virgin-earth, not yet irrigated with rains, nor fertilized by showers, out of which man was of yore first formed, out of which now Christ through the flesh has been born of a virgin; "and the tree," he says, "hath brought his fruit," -not that "tree" in paradise which yielded death to the protoplasts, but the "tree" of the passion of Christ, whence life, hanging, was by you not believed! For this "tree" in a mystery, it was of yore wherewith Moses sweetened the bitter water; whence the People, which was perishing of thirst in the desert, drank and revived; just as we do, who, drawn out from the calamities of the heathendom in which we were tarrying perishing with thirst (that is, deprived of the divine word), drinking, "by the faith which is on Him," the baptismal water of the "tree" of the passion of Christ, have revived,-a faith from which Israel has fallen away, (as foretold) through Jeremiah, who says, "Send, and ask exceedingly whether such things have been done, whether nations will change their gods (and these are not gods!).
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
Agrippa II. — Son of the foregoing, was born at Rome, A.D. 27. He was the brother of Bernice and Drusilla. The Emperor Claudius (A.D. 48) invested him with the office of superintendent of the Temple of Jerusalem,…
Apostle — A person sent by another; a messenger; envoy. This word is once used as a descriptive designation of Jesus Christ, the Sent of the Father (Heb. 3:1; John 20:21). It is, however, generally used as…
Call — (1.) To cry for help, hence to pray (Gen. 4:26). Thus men are said to “call upon the name of the Lord” (Acts 2:21; 7:59; 9:14; Rom. 10:12; 1 Cor. 1:2). (2.) God calls with respect to men when he…
Conversion — The turning of a sinner to God (Acts 15:3). In a general sense the heathen are said to be “converted” when they abandon heathenism and embrace the Christian faith; and in a more special sense men are…
Faith — Faith is in general the persuasion of the mind that a certain statement is true (Phil. 1:27; 2 Thess. 2:13). Its primary idea is trust. A thing is true, and therefore worthy of trust. It admits of…
Blindness, Spiritual · Christ’s ministers are lights to remove — Christ’s ministers are lights to remove
Conversion · Through the instrumentality of: Ministers — Through the instrumentality of: Ministers
To open their eyes,.... The eyes of their understanding, which were shut, and darkened, and blind: one copy reads, "the eyes of the blind"; and the Ethiopic version renders it, "the eyes of their heart"; and to have them opened, is to have them enlightened, to see their lost state and condition by nature, the exceeding sinfulness of sin, the plague of their own hearts, the impurity of nature, the impotence of man to that which is spiritually good, the imperfection of obedience, and the insufficiency of a man's righteousness to justify him before God; and to see where help is laid, and where salvation is; to behold Christ as the only able, willing, complete, and suitable Saviour; to see that…
Acts 26:9-18
9. And I verily thought that I ought to do many things against the name of Jesus of Nazareth. 10. Which thing I also did at Jerusalem; and I shut up many of the saints in prison, having received power from the high priests; and when they were put to death, I gave sentence. 11. And punishing them oftentimes throughout all synagogues, I enforced them to blaspheme; and being yet more mad upon them, I did persecute them even into strange cities. 12. And as I went to Damascus for this intent, with authority and commission from the high priests, 13. At midday, king, I saw in the way a light from heaven, passing the brightness of the sun, shine round about me and those which journeyed…
Throughout his defense in this trial for his life, Paul also clearly set out the conditions for receiving new life in Christ (also in 26:20, 23; see Matt 10:19-20).
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).
