The healed lame man was also present ( Acts 4:14), though we do not know if he had been imprisoned with Peter and John or was simply brought in for the hearing. The Sanhedrin wanted to know by what authority or in whose name (under whose jurisdiction) Peter and John (plural "you") had behaved as they had. [source][source][source]
Context Summary
Acts 4:1-12 - The Name Above Every Name
The Sadducees are particularly mentioned, because they were the agnostics of the age, and had no belief in the unseen and eternal. The fact of our Lord's resurrection was, therefore, especially obnoxious to them. The captain of the Temple, who was head of the Levitical guard, was probably their nominee. How weak man shows himself when he sets himself against God! All that they could do was to shut the Apostles up; but they could not bind nor imprison the Living Spirit or the speech of one saved soul to another, and so the numbers of disciples kept mounting up.
Peter must have contrasted this with his former appearance in that hall. Then he trusted his own power; now he was specially filled with the Holy Spirit for a great and noble confession. The name of Jesus stands for His glorious being. It was because the man had come into vital union with the ever-living Christ, that disease was stayed and health restored. The name of Jesus rings through these chapters like a sweet refrain. Evidently He was living and at hand, or the streams of power and grace could not have poured forth to make desert lives begin to blossom as the garden of the Lord. [source]
Chapter Summary: Acts 4
1The rulers of the Jews, offended with Peter's sermon, 3imprison him and John 5After, upon examination 8Peter boldly avouching the lame man to be healed by the name of Jesus, 11and that only by the same Jesus we must be eternally saved, 13they threaten him and John to preach no more in that name, 23whereupon the church flees to prayer 31And God, by moving the place where they were assembled, testifies that he heard their prayer; 34confirming the church with the gift of the Holy Spirit, and with mutual love and charity
Greek Commentary for Acts 4:7
In the midst [εν τωι μεσωι] The Sanhedrin sat in a semicircle. [source]
They inquired [επυντανοντο] Imperfect middle, began to inquire. Or in what name (η εν ποιωι ονοματι ē en poiōi onomati). As if by some magical formula such as exorcists practised (Acts 19:13) as if to catch them by (Deuteronomy 13:1). Have ye done this Note emphatic use of υμεις humeis (ye). [source]
Or in what name [η εν ποιωι ονοματι] As if by some magical formula such as exorcists practised (Acts 19:13) as if to catch them by (Deuteronomy 13:1). [source]
Have ye done this [εποιησατε τουτο υμεις] Note emphatic use of υμεις humeis (ye). [source]
What power - what name [] Lit., what sort of power; what kind of name. [source]
Have ye done [] The ye closes the sentence in the Greek with a contemptuous emphasis: you people. [source]
Reverse Greek Commentary Search for Acts 4:7
Acts 23:2Ananias [ανανιας] Not the one in Luke 3:2; John 18:13; Acts 4:7, but the son of Nebedaeus, nominated high priest by Herod, King of Chalcis, a.d. 48 and till a.d. 59. He was called to Rome a.d. 52 to answer “a charge of rapine and cruelty made against him by the Samaritans, but honourably acquitted” (Page). Though high priest, he was a man of bad character. [source]
Acts 5:33Were minded [βουλομαι] Imperfect middle of ανελειν boulomai They were plotting and planning to kill (anelein as in Acts 2:23; Luke 23:33 which see) then and there. The point in Acts 4:7 was whether the apostles deserved stoning for curing the cripple by demoniacal power, but here it was disobedience to the command of the Sanhedrin which was not a capital offence. “They were on the point of committing a grave judicial blunder” (Furneaux). [source]
Acts 7:49What manner of house [Ποιον οικον] What sort of a house? This interrogative is sometimes scornful as in Acts 4:7; Luke 6:32. (Page). So Stephen shows by Isaiah that Solomon was right that the temple was not meant to “confine” God‘s presence and that Jesus had rightly shown that God is a spirit and can be worshipped anywhere by any individual of any race or land. It is a tremendous argument for the universality and spirituality of Christianity free from the shackles of Jewish racial and national limitations, but its very strength only angered the Sanhedrin to desperation. [source]
What do the individual words in Acts 4:7 mean?
Andhaving placedtheminthemidstthey began to inquirewhatpowerorwhatnamedidthisyou
Greek Commentary for Acts 4:7
The Sanhedrin sat in a semicircle. [source]
Imperfect middle, began to inquire. Or in what name (η εν ποιωι ονοματι ē en poiōi onomati). As if by some magical formula such as exorcists practised (Acts 19:13) as if to catch them by (Deuteronomy 13:1). Have ye done this Note emphatic use of υμεις humeis (ye). [source]
As if by some magical formula such as exorcists practised (Acts 19:13) as if to catch them by (Deuteronomy 13:1). [source]
Note emphatic use of υμεις humeis (ye). [source]
Lit., what sort of power; what kind of name. [source]
The ye closes the sentence in the Greek with a contemptuous emphasis: you people. [source]
Reverse Greek Commentary Search for Acts 4:7
Not the one in Luke 3:2; John 18:13; Acts 4:7, but the son of Nebedaeus, nominated high priest by Herod, King of Chalcis, a.d. 48 and till a.d. 59. He was called to Rome a.d. 52 to answer “a charge of rapine and cruelty made against him by the Samaritans, but honourably acquitted” (Page). Though high priest, he was a man of bad character. [source]
The healing power is in that name (Page) and Peter says so. Cf. Luke 9:49; Luke 10:17; Acts 4:7, Acts 4:10; Acts 19:27; Acts 16:18. [source]
Imperfect middle of ανελειν boulomai They were plotting and planning to kill (anelein as in Acts 2:23; Luke 23:33 which see) then and there. The point in Acts 4:7 was whether the apostles deserved stoning for curing the cripple by demoniacal power, but here it was disobedience to the command of the Sanhedrin which was not a capital offence. “They were on the point of committing a grave judicial blunder” (Furneaux). [source]
What sort of a house? This interrogative is sometimes scornful as in Acts 4:7; Luke 6:32. (Page). So Stephen shows by Isaiah that Solomon was right that the temple was not meant to “confine” God‘s presence and that Jesus had rightly shown that God is a spirit and can be worshipped anywhere by any individual of any race or land. It is a tremendous argument for the universality and spirituality of Christianity free from the shackles of Jewish racial and national limitations, but its very strength only angered the Sanhedrin to desperation. [source]