Word Pictures in the New Testament - David Cox

Word Pictures in the NT [Acts: Chapter 17]
\haimatos\ (blood) is absent from Aleph A B and is a later
explanatory addition. What Paul affirms is the unity of the human
race with a common origin and with God as the Creator. This view
runs counter to Greek exclusiveness which treated other races as
barbarians and to Jewish pride which treated other nations as
heathen or pagan (the Jews were \laos\, the Gentiles \ethn•\).
The cosmopolitanism of Paul here rises above Jew and Greek and
claims the one God as the Creator of the one race of men. The
Athenians themselves claimed to be \antochthonous\ (indigenous)
and a special creation. Zeno and Seneca did teach a kind of
cosmopolitanism (really pantheism) far different from the
personal God of Paul. It was Rome, not Greece, that carried out
the moral ideas of Zeno. Man is part of the universe (verse 24)
and God created (\epoi•sen\) man as he created (\poi•sas\) the
all. {For to dwell} (\katoikein\). Infinitive (present active) of
purpose, so as to dwell. {Having determined} (\horisas\). First
aorist active participle of \horiz•\, old verb to make a horizon
as already in 19:42 which see. Paul here touches God's
Providence. God has revealed himself in history as in creation.
His hand appears in the history of all men as well as in that of
the Chosen People of Israel. {Appointed seasons}
(\prostetagmenous kairous\). Not the weather as in 14:17, but
"the times of the Gentiles" (\kairoi ethn•n\) of which Jesus
spoke (Lu 21:24). The perfect passive participle of
\prostass•\, old verb to enjoin, emphasizes God's control of
human history without any denial of human free agency as was
involved in the Stoic Fate (\Heirmarmen•\). {Bounds}
(\horothesias\). Limits? Same idea in Job 12:23. Nations rise
and fall, but it is not blind chance or hard fate. Thus there is
an interplay between God's will and man's activities, difficult
as it is for us to see with our shortened vision.
17:27 {That they should seek God} (\Z•tein ton theon\).
Infinitive (present active) of purpose again. Seek him, not turn
away from him as the nations had done (Ro 1:18-32). {If haply
they might feel after him} (\ei ara ge ps•laph•seian auton\).
First aorist active (Aeolic form) optative of \ps•lapha•\, old
verb from \psa•\, to touch. So used by the Risen Jesus in his
challenge to the disciples (Lu 24:39), by the Apostle John of
his personal contact with Jesus (1Jo 1:1), of the contact with
Mount Sinai (Heb 12:18). Here it pictures the blind groping of
the darkened heathen mind after God to "find him" (\heuroien\,
second aorist active optative) whom they had lost. One knows what
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