Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Acts 14:16
Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways.
16. who in times past ( by-gone generations) suffered all nations ( all the heathen) to walk in their own ways ] God had chosen Israel only for His own people before the coming of Christ, and had given to the rest of the world no revelation of Himself except what they could read in the pages of the book of nature. But that, St Paul says, spake clearly of a careful creator and preserver of the world.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Who in times past – Previous to the gospel; in past ages.
Suffered all nations – Permitted all nations; that is, all Gentiles, Act 17:30. And the times of this ignorance God winked at.
To walk in their own ways – To conduct themselves without the restraints and instructions of a written law. They were permitted to follow their own reason and passions, and their own system of religion. God gave them no written laws, and sent to them no messengers. Why he did this we cannot determine. It might have been, among other reasons, to show to the world conclusively:
(1) The insufficiency of reason to guide people in the matters of religion. The experiment was made under the most favorable circumstances. The most enlightened nations, the Greeks and Romans, were left to pursue the inquiry, and failed no less than the most degraded tribes of people. The trial was made for four thousand years, and attended with the same results everywhere.
(2) It showed the need of revelation to guide man.
(3) It evinced, beyond the possibility of mistake, the depravity of man. In all nations, in all circumstances, people had shown the same alienation from God. By suffering them to walk in their own ways, it was seen that those ways were sin, and that some power more than human was necessary to bring people back to God.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 16. Who in times past suffered all nations, c.] The words , which we here translate, all nations, should be rendered, all the Gentiles, merely to distinguish them from the Jewish people: who having a revelation, were not left to walk in their own ways but the heathens, who had not a revelation, were suffered to form their creed, and mode of worship, according to their own caprice.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
There were two main objections which these heathen idolaters might make against the gospel, and the worship of the true God: and they are, first, from the antiquity, secondly, from the universality, of that false worship; both which the apostle here gives a critical answer unto, telling them, that the reason why so many, and for so long a time had followed idols, was from the just judgment of God upon them, as Psa 81:12; Rom 1:24,28.
Their own ways; ways of our choosing, and not of Gods commanding, are false ways.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
16. Who in times past suffered allnations to walk in their own waysthat is, without extending tothem the revelation vouchsafed to the seed of Abraham, and the graceattending it; compare Act 17:30;1Co 1:21. Yet not without guilton their part was this privation (Ro1:20, &c.).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Who in times past,…. For many hundred years past; even ever since God chose and separated the people of Israel from the rest of the nations, to be a peculiar people to himself: from that time he
suffered all nations to walk in their own ways; of ignorance, superstition, and idolatry; which they devised, and chose, and delighted in: not that he gave them any licence to walk in these ways, without being chargeable with sin, or with impunity; but he left them to themselves, to the dim light and law of nature, and gave them no written law, nor any external revelation of his mind and will; nor did he send any prophets or ministers of his unto them, to show them the evil of their ways, and turn them from them, and direct them to the true God, and the right way of worshipping him; but left them to take their own methods, and pursue the imagination of their own hearts: but the apostle suggests, that the case was now altered, and God had sent them and other ministers of his, among all nations of the world, to protest against their superstition and idolatry; and to reclaim them from their evil ways, and to direct them to the true and living God, and his worship, and to preach salvation by his Son Jesus Christ.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
In the generations gone by ( ). Perfect middle participle from , to go by, old verb, here alone in the N.T.
Suffered (). Constative aorist active indicative of (note syllabic augment). Paul here touches God in history as he did just before in creation. God’s hand is on the history of all the nations (Gentile and Jew), only with the Gentiles he withdrew the restraints of his grace in large measure (Acts 17:30; Rom 1:24; Rom 1:26; Rom 1:28), judgment enough for their sins.
To walk in their ways ( ). Present middle infinitive, to go on walking, with locative case without . This philosophy of history does not mean that God was ignorant or unconcerned. He was biding his time in patience.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Times [] . More correctly, generations, as Rev.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “Who in the past suffered all nations,” (hos en tais parochemenais geneais eiasen panta ta ethne) “Who in past generations allowed or permitted all the nations or races,” in tolerance and longsuffering, under the law administration, before the coming of Jesus Christ, Psa 81:11-12; Act 17:30.
2) “To walk in their own ways.” (pareuethai tais hodois auton) “To go their own ways,” according to their own choice, volition, or desire, with less severe judgement than now, when men have fuller available evidences regarding God, their sins, and Jesus Christ, the Savior, 1Pe 4:3. Men are today, now, in this age, absolutely without excuse for selfishly and covetously going their own rebellious ways against the light and knowledge they have of the word and will of God for them, Act 17:30-31; Rom 2:11; Heb 3:7-8; 2Co 6:2; Rev 22:17; Heb 4:7.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
−
16. In times past. Because the men of Lystra might object that that God was unknown hitherto, Paul and Barnabas prevent them and say, that all men wandered indeed in darkness, and that all mankind was stricken with blindness, but that they deny that any prejudice must be made − (34) according to the perverse ignorance of the world. These were two no small lets for the unbelievers, long antiquity of time, and the consent almost of all nations. Paul and Barnabas remove both in this place, If, say they, men have erred many years, [ages,] and if the world have wandered without reason and judgment, let not, therefore, the truth of God, when it appeareth, be less precious to you. For seeing that it is eternal, and is not changed, it is an unmeet thing that the long prescription of years should be set against it. They prove that there is no more aid or patronage to be found in the number of men. There is no cause (say they) why the conspiracy of all the whole world should keep you from coming to the right way. Blindness hath got the upper hand among all people; but God doth now (appear and) give light to you. Therefore, your eyes must be open, and you must not slumber and sleep in darkness, though all people have been drowned therein hitherto. −
Their ways. If he had only said that men were deceived until that time through God’s sufferance, we might easily gather thereby that all men can do nothing else but err, so long as they be not governed of God. Yet he speaketh far more plainly when he calleth errors the ways of men. For we are plainly taught by this what the wisdom and understanding of man’s mind can do in beholding and keeping the way of salvation. All people [nations] (saith he) have walked in their own ways; that is, they have wandered in darkness and death. It is all one as if he should say, that there is no sparkle of true reason in all the whole world. −
Therefore, there is but one rule of true godliness, that is, that the faithful, casting from them all confidence in their own wit, do submit themselves to God. For the ways of men are now as they were in times past; and the examples of all times teach how miserably blind those men be who have not the word of God to give them light, though they think they can pass other men in quickness of sight. Immediately after the beginning of the world, the more part fell away unto diverse superstitions and wicked worshippings. Whence came that, save only because it pleased them to follow their own imaginations? When it might have seemed that the world was purged with the flood, it fell again [relapsed] straightway to the same vices. Therefore, there is nothing more deadly than to lean to our own wisdom. −
But Paul and Barnabas show no cause here why the Lord suffered the world to err so long; and assuredly we must count the will of God alone the chiefest law of equity. God hath always a good reason for his worlds; but because it is oftentimes hid from us, it is our duty reverently to wonder at his secret counsel. We must, indeed, confess that the world was worthy of [deserved] such destruction; but there can no other reason be brought why the Lord had mercy rather on one age than on another, save only because it seemed good to him that it should be so. Therefore, Paul calleth that time which was appointed of God for preaching the gospel, the time of fullness, ( Gal 4:4,) lest any other opportunity be sought. And we must remember that which we had in the first chapter, that it is not for us to know the times and seasons which the Father hath placed in his own power. So that the cavil of the Papists is refuted, who say that it cannot be that God suffered his Church to err so long. For whence, I pray you, came the Gentiles but from the ark of Noah, when there was a certain singular purity of the Church? ( Gen 9:9.) Also, the posterity of holy Shem, together with others, did degenerate. Yea, Israel, the peculiar people of the Lord, was also left for a long time. Wherefore, it is no marvel if God did punish the contempt of his word with the same blindness under the reign of his Son as he did in times past. −
(34) −
“
Debere praejudicium fieri,” that any thing should be prejudged, (any judgment should be founded on.)
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(16) Who in times past suffered all nations.Better, all the heathen; the term used being that which is always employed of the nations outside the covenant of Israel. We have here the first germ of what may be fairly described as St. Pauls philosophy of history. The times of ignorance had been permitted by God, and those who had lived in them would be equitably dealt with, and judged according to their knowledge. The same thought meets us again in the speech at Athens (Act. 17:30). In Romans 1, 2, 11, we meet with it, in an expanded form, as a more complete vindication of the righteousness of God. The ignorance and the sins of the Gentile world had been allowed to run their course, as the Law had been allowed to do its partial and imperfect work among the Jews, as parts, if one may so speak, of a great divine drama, leading both to feel the need of redemption, and preparing both for its reception. All were included in unbelief that God might have mercy upon all (Rom. 11:32).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
16. In times past Before Christ came to establish a universal religion to be preached to every creature, abolishing all false systems, and filling the world with truth.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Act 14:16. Who in times past suffered all nations, &c. That is, all the Gentiles. God left all nations, except the Jews, to the light of the heathen dispensation. It does not appear that any prophet except Jonah, was sent to the Gentile world, from the days of Noah or Abraham. See 1Pe 3:20; 1Pe 5:2-3 and my Annotations on the epistle to the Romans.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Act 14:16-18 . Who in the past ages left the Gentiles to themselves (did not guide them by special revelation), although He withal made Himself known, doing good to them, by the blessings of nature an indulgent description (comp. Act 17:30 ) of the ungodly character of the heathen, with a gently reproving reference to the revelation of God in nature. , Chrysostom. Grotius aptly remarks: “Egregiam hic habemus formam orationis, quam imitari debeant, qui apud populos in idololatria educates evangelium praedicant.” Comp. Schneckenburger, die natrl. Theol. d. Paul. in his Beitr . p. 97 ff.
] local [18] dative: in their ways . Comp. on 2Co 12:18 ; Jud 1:11 ; Jdt 13:16 ; Sir 35:20 . What is meant is the development of the inward and outward life in a way shaped by themselves, without divine regulation and influence, and also without the intervention of the divine anger. Comp. Rom 3:10 ff; Rom 1:22 ff., where the whole moral abomination and curse of this relation is unveiled, whereas here only alluring gentleness speaks. [19]
. . . .] An indication that they, nevertheless, might and should have known Him. Comp. Rom 1:20 , , as in Joh 4:2 , quamquam quidem , and yet . See also Baeumlein, Partik . p. 245 ff.; and Krger, Dion. H . p. 267.
Observe the relation of the three participles, of which the second is logically subordinate to the first, and the third to the second: as doer of good, in that He gives you rain, thereby filling, etc.
] not uselessly added. “Coelum sedes Dei,” Bengel. Observe also the individualizing (see critical remarks).
] joy generally. Arbitrarily, Grotius and Wolf suggest that ( Sir 31:31 ) wine is meant.
] neither stands for the simple , nor is it to be taken, with Wolf, of the stomach (Thuc. II. 49. 2); but the heart is filed with food , inasmuch as the sensation of being filled, the pleasant feeling of satisfaction , is in the heart . Comp. Psa 104:15 ; Jas 5:5 .
] comp. Act 10:47 . The genitive depends on , according to the construction . to divert a person from a thing, to hinder him in it (Hom. Od. xxiv. 457; Plat. Polit. p. 294 E; frequently in the LXX.), and is the usual particle with verbs of preventing and hindering (Hartung, Partikell. II. p. 167 f.; Baeumlein, l.c. p. 298 ff.).
[18] See, generally, on the dativus localis , Becker, Homer. Bltter, p. 208 f.
[19] The announcement of the gospel forms the great epoch in the history of salvation, with the emergence of which the times of men’s being left to themselves are fulfilled. See Act 17:30 ; Rom 3:25 f. Comp. also Hebart, natrl. Theol. d. Ap. Paul. p. 13. For judgment Jesus has come into the world.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
16 Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways.
Ver. 16. Suffered all nations, &c. ] That we walk not as other Gentiles, in our own ways, but know and serve the true God, is of his singular grace and favour. The ancient inhabitants of this land were as barbarous and brutish as any under heaven. Cicero ( De Nat. Deorum ) parallels the Britons and Scythians. Jerome ever sets them in opposition to some other nation that is most tamed and civilized. Sed Britannorum inaccsssa Romanis loca Christo tamen subdita, saith Tertullian. Christ subdued those whom the Romans could never come at to conquer.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
16. ] Compare Rom 3:25-26 , and ch. Act 17:30 .
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Act 14:16-17 . : God working not only in creation, but in history, not only the source of life but the personal living Guide and Ruler of man, even in His tolerance far removed from the easy indifference of the gods of Olympus. The three present participles . . . mark the continuous activity and goodness of God, and are all three epexegetical of ; whilst the second participle is generally regarded as specifying a mode of the first, and the third as expressing a consequence of the second. : only again in Act 26:13 in N.T., see 4Ma 4:10 ; so in Hom. and Hes., old genitive of . .: the Apostle’s appeal becomes more significant when we remember that Zeus was spoken of as , (Bethge); the rain was regarded in the East as a special sign of divine favour, and here, as in the O.T., God’s goodness and power in this gift are asserted as against the impotence of the gods of the heathen, see especially Jer 14:22 , and cf. 1Ki 18:1 and 1Sa 12:17 where this same phrase . is used of God. .: here only in N.T., cf. LXX, Jer 2:21 , Psa 106:34 , and also classical; cf. for the whole passage Cicero, De Nat. Deorum , ii., 53. ( ), cf. Luk 1:53 ; Luk 6:25 , Rom 15:24 , Joh 6:12 , frequent in LXX, e.g. , Psa 106:9 , Isa 29:19 , Jer 38:14 , Sir 4:12 ; see also below on . : Blass compares Luk 21:34 , where the heart is spoken of as overcharged with surfeiting, as here it is spoken of as filled with food. But the word may be used not merely as = , or in a merely material sense, but as including the idea of enjoyment , cf. LXX, Psa 103:15 ; Winer-Moulton, Act 23:1 , and Alford on Jas 5:5 . : in its ordinary Greek use might simply mean “good cheer,” although we need not limit it here with Grotius to wine as in Sir 31:28 ; very frequently used in LXX (only here and in Act 2:28 in N.T.), sometimes of mere festive joy, Gen 31:27 , sometimes of religious gladness, Deu 28:47 . Although St. Paul could not have used it here as it is employed in Act 2:28 , yet he might perhaps have used it as a kind of transition word to lead his hearers on to a deeper gladness of heart, a richer gift of God than corn and wine, cf. Psa 4:7 , and for the phrase . . Isa 29:19 , Sir 4:12 . It may well be that whilst we have in this address the germ of the thoughts afterwards developed in Rom 1:18 ; Rom 1:23 , etc., St. Paul did not press his argument on this occasion as in his Epistle, but took the first step to arrest the attention of his hearers by an appeal to the goodness, not to the severity, of God the goodness which leadeth to repentance. It has been thought that the words . . . . are rhythmical, and may have been some familiar fragment of a song, or a citation from a Greek poet, in which the Apostle expressed his thoughts; others have maintained that they may have formed part of the hymn sung in the procession for the sacrifice, and that St. Paul made the words his text; see Humphry, in loco; Farrar, St. Paul , i., p. 384; Felten, in loco; but it may be fairly said that the O.T. language was in itself quite sufficient to suggest the Apostle’s words. On the remarkable parallels between this speech and the sayings of Pseudo-Heracleitus in his letters see Gore, Ephesians , p. 253 ff., but see also Bernays, Die Heraklitischen Briefe , p. 29. : “all the Gentiles,” R.V., the words divided mankind into two classes, but there was the same Lord over all, Rom 3:29 . . : “in the generations gone by,” R.V. .: not in LXX or Apocrypha, but classical, and used also by Josephus. ( cf. Act 17:30 , Rom 3:25-26 ) . , i.e. , without summoning them as now to repent, cf. for the combination Act 9:31 , and for the expression 2Co 12:18 , Jud 1:11 , Jas 5:20 (in classical Greek cf. Thuc., iii., 64, ), cf. also the contrast between God’s ways and the wilfulness of Israel in the past, Psa 81:13 and previous verses, expressed in the same phraseology.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
times = generations. Greek. genea.
past = passed away. Greek. paroichomai. Only here.
nations. Greek. ethnos.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
16.] Compare Rom 3:25-26, and ch. Act 17:30.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Act 14:16. , who) An anticipation of an objection that might be made, lest the Lycaonians should suppose that, had these same things been true, they would have heard them from their parents.-, past) is said of that which perishes and passes away ineffectual. See by all means 2 Esdras 9 :(13) 14-22; with which comp. as to a vain mode of life, 1Pe 1:18 : and, on the contrary, as to believers, Act 13:36, David served the will of God in his generation.-, suffered) A great judgment. With this may be compared Heidanus de Orig. erroris, l. vi., etc.-, all) The largeness of the number of those in error does not take away (set aside) the error.- , in their own ways) of idolatry, which they themselves entered upon (have begun).
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
suffered: Act 17:30, Psa 81:12, Psa 147:20, Hos 4:17, Rom 1:21-25, Rom 1:28, Eph 2:12, 1Pe 4:3
Reciprocal: Deu 18:14 – hath not suffered Ecc 11:9 – walk Isa 44:18 – for he hath Isa 60:2 – the darkness Isa 63:19 – are thine Dan 3:7 – all the people Act 26:20 – and then Rom 1:19 – that which Rom 1:24 – God Rom 2:14 – which Eph 2:3 – in times
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
6
Act 14:16. God suffered nations to walk in their own ways. That is different from permitting it, for that would be equivalent to endorsing it.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
See notes one verse 14
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
14:16 {5} Who in times past {g} suffered all nations to walk in their own ways.
(5) Custom, be it ever so old, does not excuse the idolaters.
(g) Allowed them to live as they wished, prescribing and appointing them no type of religion.