Acts 13:26

“"Men and brethren, children of the stock of Abraham, and whosoever among you feareth God, to you is the word of this salvation sent. For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew Him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning Him. And though they found no cause of death in Him, yet desired they Pilate that He should be slain." On all occasions we find them making a great point of showing this, that the blessing is peculiarly theirs, that they may not flee from Christ, as thinking they had nothing to do with Him, because they had crucified Him. "Because they knew Him not," he says: so that the sin was one of ignorance. See how he gently makes an apology even on behalf of those crucifiers. And not only this: but he adds also, that thus it must needs be. And how so? "By condemning Him, they fulfilled the voices of the prophets." "Men and brethren," etc. For since they were possessed by fear, as having slain Him, and conscience made them aliens, the Apostles discourse not with them as unto Christicides, neither as putting into their hands a good which was not theirs, but one peculiarly their own. "For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers:" as much as to say, not ye, but they: and again, apologizing even for those, "Because they knew Him not, and the voices of the Prophets which are read every sabbath day, in condemning Him, they fulfilled them." A great charge it is against them that they continually hearing heeded not. But no marvel: for what was said above concerning Egypt and the wilderness, was enough to show their ingratitude. "Men and brethren, children of the stock of Abraham" - he also calls them after their father - "unto you was the word of this salvation sent." Here the expression, "Unto you," does not mean, Unto you Jews, but it gives them a right to sever themselves from those who dared that murder. And what he adds, shows this plainly. "For," he says, "they that dwell at Jerusalem, because they know Him not." And how, you will say, could they be ignorant, with John to tell them? What marvel, seeing they were so, with the prophets continually crying aloud to them? Then follows another charge: "And having found no cause of death in Him:" in which ignorance had nothing to do. For let us put the case, that they did not hold Him to be the Christ: why did they also kill Him? And "they desired of Pilate, he says, that He should be slain."”

“And though they found no cause of death in him,.... That is, no crime that deserved death; they sought for such, but could find none; they suborned false witnesses, who brought charges against him, but could not support them; wherefore Pilate, his judge, several times declared his innocence, and would have discharged him: yet desired they Pilate that he should be slain; they were urgent and importunate with him, that he would order him to be put to death; the power of life and death being then in the hands of the Romans; the Vulgate Latin and Syriac versions read, "that they might slay him"; and the Arabic version, "that he might slay him"; and the Ethiopic version renders the whole quite contrary to the sense, "and they gave power to Pilate to hang him"; whereas the power of putting him to death was in Pilate, and not in them: and therefore they were pressing upon him, that he would order his execution, notwithstanding his innocence.”

“Men and brethren - This should have been translated brethren simply. See the note on Act 7:2. Children of the stock of Abraham - All ye that are Jews. And whosoever among you feared God - That is, all ye who are Gentiles, and are now proselytes to the Jewish religion. The word of this salvation - The doctrine that contains the promise of deliverance from sin, and the means by which it is brought about; all which is founded on Jesus, of the stock of David, dying and rising again for the salvation of Jews and Gentiles.”