the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Security
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or It is only in Acts 17:9 that the word concerns us at present: ‘And when they had taken security from Jason and the rest, they let them go.’ The idiom is λαβόντες τὸ ἱκανόν and is translation of the Latin satis accipere. Cf. τὸ ἱκανὸν ποιῆσαι in Mark 15:15, which occurs ‘as early as polybius’ (J. H. Moulton, A. Grammar of NT Greek, vol. i., ‘Prolegomena,’ 1908, p. 20 f.). It is natural to meet a Latin legal term in this Roman court; the politarchs of Thessalonica may even have used the Latin instead of the κοινή. The security demanded might be in the form either of money or of sponsors for good behaviour. It is not clear what is meant by saying that the politarchs ‘let them go.’ It is uncertain also whether the security was for the ‘good behaviour’ of Jason and the rest, for the production of St. Paul and Silas before the politarchs, or for the ‘good behaviour’ of St. Paul and Silas (cf. R. J. Knowling, Expositor’s Greek Testament , ‘Acts,’ 1900, in loco.). F. Blass (Acta Apostolorum, 1895, in loco) considers the phrase a commercial, not a legal, term. In any case, ‘the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto BerCEa’ (Acts 17:10). The haste and the cover of darkness indicate the urgency of the predicament, which concerned, apparently, the welfare not merely of St. Paul and Silas, but also of Jason and the rest, because of ‘the security’ given to the politarchs. It is not open to make a charge of cowardice here against either Jason or St. Paul. It was a practical question of how to meet an emergency due to jealousy and prejudice.
A. T. Robertson.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Security'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/s/security.html. 1906-1918.
