Postulasagan 14:11

Heilögum Biblíunni

11 Múgurinn sá, hvað Páll hafði gjört, og tók að hrópa á lýkaónsku: "Guðirnir eru í manna líki stignir niður til vor."

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

The gods: Acts 8:10, Acts 12:22, Acts 28:6

Reciprocal: Daniel 5:11 - light Mark 7:37 - were John 19:8 - heard Acts 2:7 - amazed Acts 3:9 - General Acts 3:12 - or Acts 10:25 - and fell Acts 14:6 - Lycaonia 2 Corinthians 4:5 - we 2 Corinthians 6:8 - honour Revelation 19:10 - I fell

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And when the people saw what Paul had done,.... In curing the lame man in so marvellous a manner, and concluding it to be a divine work, and what a mere creature could never perform:

they lift up their voices; not in indignation and wrath, but as persons astonished:

saying in the speech of Lycaonia; by which it should seem that Lystra was a city of Lycaonia, since the Lycaonian language was spoken in it; the Arabic version reads, "in their own tongue"; and the Syriac version, "in the dialect of the country"; very likely a dialect of the Greek tongue;

the gods are come down to us in the likeness of men; they had a notion of deity, though a very wrong one; they thought there were more gods than one, and they imagined heaven to be the habitation of the gods; and that they sometimes descended on earth in human shape, as they supposed they now did.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

They lifted up their voices - They spoke with astonishment, such as might be expected when it was supposed that the gods had come down.

In the speech of Lycaonia - What this language was has much perplexed commentators. It was probably a mixture of the Greek and Syriac. In that region generally the Greek was usually spoken with more or less purity; and from the fact that it was not far from the regions of Syria, it is probable that the Greek language was corrupted with this foreign admixture.

The gods ... - All the region was idolatrous. The gods which were worshipped there were those which were worshipped throughout Greece.

Are come down - The miracle which Paul had performed led them to suppose this. It was evidently beyond human ability, and they had no other way of accounting for it than by supposing that their gods had personally appeared.

In the likeness of men - Many of their gods were heroes, whom they worshipped after they were dead. It was a common belief among them that the gods appeared to people in human form. The poems of Homer, of Virgil, etc., are filled with accounts of such appearances, and the only way in which they supposed the gods to take knowledge of human affairs, and to help people, was by their personally appearing in this form. See Homer’s Odyssey, xvii. 485; Catullus, 64, 384; Ovid’s Metamorph., i. 212 (Kuinoel). Thus, Homer says:

“For in similitude of strangers oft.

The gods, who can with ease all shapes assume,

Repair to populous cities, where they mark.

Th’ outrageous and the righteous deeds of men.”

Cowper.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Acts 14:11. Saying, in the speech of Lycaonia — What this language was has puzzled the learned not a little. Calmet thinks it was a corrupt Greek dialect; as Greek was the general language of Asia Minor. Mr. Paul Ernest Jablonski, who has written a dissertation expressly on the subject, thinks it was the same language with that of the Cappadocians, which was mingled with Syriac. That it was no dialect of the Greek must be evident from the circumstance of its being here distinguished from it. We have sufficient proofs from ancient authors that most of these provinces used different languages; and it is correctly remarked, by Dr. Lightfoot, that the Carians, who dwelt much nearer Greece than the Lycaonians, are called by Homer, βαρβαροφωνοι, people of a barbarous or strange language; and Pausanias also called them Barbari. That the language of Pisidia was distinct from the Greek we have already seen, Clarke's note on "Acts 13:15". We have no light to determine this point; and every search after the language of Lycaonia must be, at this distance of time, fruitless.

The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men. — From this, and from all heathen antiquity, it is evident:

1. That the heathen did not consider the Divine nature, how low soever they rated it, to be like the human nature.

2. That they imagined that these celestial beings often assumed human forms to visit men, in order to punish the evil and reward the good. The Metamorphoses of Ovid are full of such visitations; and so are Homer, Virgil, and other poets. The angels visiting Abraham, Jacob, Lot, c., might have been the foundation on which most of these heathen fictions were built.

The following passage in HOMER will cast some light upon the point:-

Και τε Θεοι, ξεινοισιν εοικοτες αλλοδαποισι,

Παντοιοι τελεθοντες, επιστρωφωσι ποληας,

Ανθρωπων ὑβριν τε και ευνομιην εφορωντες.

Hom. Odyss. xvii. ver. 485.

For in similitude of strangers oft,

The gods, who can with ease all shapes assume,

Repair to populous cities, where they mark

The outrageous and the righteous deeds of men.

COWPER.

OVID had a similar notion, where he represents Jupiter coming down to visit the earth, which seems to be copied from Genesis, Genesis 18:20-21: And the Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is grievous, I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me: and if not, I will know.

Contigerat nostras infamia temporis aures:

Quam cupiens falsam, summo delabor Olympo.

Et deus humana lustro sub imagine terras.

Longa mora est, quantum noxae sit ubique repertum,

Enamerare: minor fuit ipsa infamia vero.

Metam. lib. i. ver. 211.

The clamours of this vile, degenerate age,

The cries of orphans, and the oppressor's rage,

Had reached the stars: "I will descend," said I,

In hope to prove this loud complaint a lie.

Disguised in human shape, I travelled round

The world, and more than what I heard, I found.

DRYDEN.

It was a settled belief among the Egyptians, that their gods, sometimes in the likeness of men, and sometimes in that of animals which they held sacred, descended to the earth, and travelled through different provinces, to punish, reward, and protect. The Hindoo Avatars, or incarnations of their gods, prove how generally this opinion had prevailed. Their Poorana are full of accounts of the descent of Brahma, Vishnoo, Shiva, Naradu, and other gods, in human shape. We need not wonder to find it in Lycaonia.