Word Pictures in the New Testament - David Cox

Word Pictures in the NT [Acts: Chapter 1]
bodily presence. The period of forty days is given here alone.
The Ascension was thus ten days before Pentecost when the Holy
Spirit came. Moses was in the mount forty days (Ex 24:18) and
Jesus fasted forty days (Mt 4:2). In the Gospel of Luke 24 this
separation of forty days between the Resurrection and the
Ascension is not drawn. {The things concerning the Kingdom of
God} (\ta peri t•s basileias tou theou\). This phrase appears 33
times in Luke's Gospel, 15 times in Mark, 4 times in Matthew who
elsewhere has "the kingdom of heaven," once in John, and 6 times
in Acts. No essential distinction is to be drawn between the two
for the Jews often used "heaven" rather than "God" to avoid using
the Tetragrammaton. But it is noticeable how the word kingdom
drops out of Acts. Other words like gospel (\euaggelion\) take
the place of "kingdom." Jesus was fond of the word "kingdom" and
Luke is fond of the idiom "the things concerning" (\ta peri\).
Certainly with Jesus the term "kingdom" applies to the present
and the future and covers so much that it is not strange that the
disciples with their notions of a political Messianic kingdom
(Ac 1:6) were slow to comprehend the spiritual nature of the
reign of God.
1:4 {Being assembled together with them} (\sunalizomenos\).
Present passive participle from \sunaliz•\, an old verb in
Herodotus, Xenophon, etc., from sun, with, and \haliz•\, from
\hal•s\, crowded. The margin of both the Authorized and the
Revised Versions has "eating with them" as if from \sun\ and
\hals\ (salt). Salt was the mark of hospitality. There is the
verb \halisth•te en aut•i\ used by Ignatius _Ad Magnes_. X, "Be
ye salted in him." But it is more than doubtful if that is the
idea here though the Vulgate does have _convescens illis_ "eating
with them," as if that was the common habit of Jesus during the
forty days (Wendt, Feine, etc.). Jesus did on occasion eat with
the disciples (Lu 24:41-43; Mr 16:14). {To wait for the promise
of the Father} (\perimenein t•n epaggelian tou patros\). Note
present active infinitive, to keep on waiting for (around,
\peri\). In the Great Commission on the mountain in Galilee this
item was not given (Mt 28:16-20). It is the subjective
genitive, the promise given by the Father (note this Johannine
use of the word), that is the Holy Spirit ("the promise of the
Holy Spirit," objective genitive). {Which ye heard from me} (\h•n
•kousate mou\). Change from indirect discourse (command),
infinitives \ch•rizesthai\ and \perimenein\ after \par•ggeilen\
to direct discourse without any \eph•\ (said he) as the English
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