Acts 8:27

Of Ethiopia The name for the lands lying south of Egypt, including the modern Nubia, Cordofan, and Northern Abyssinia. Rawlinson speaks of subjects of the Ethiopian queens living in an island near Mero, in the northern part of this district. He further remarks: "The monuments prove beyond all question that the Ethiopians borrowed from Egypt their religion and their habits of civilization. They even adopted the Egyptian as the language of religion and of the court, which it continued to be till the power of the Pharaohs had fallen, and their dominion was again confined to the frontier of Ethiopia. It was through Egypt, too, that Christianity passed into Ethiopia, even in the age of the apostles, as is shown by the eunuch of Queen Candace." Of great authority (δυνάστης) A general term for a potentate. Candace The common name of the queens of Mero: a titular distinction, like Pharaoh in Egypt, or Caesar at Rome. Treasure (γάζης) Only here in New Testament. A Persian word.

A man of Ethiopia: the Ethiopians were the most despicable unto the Jews; and Homer calls them, escatoi anorwn; but God would now show that there is no difference of nations with him; but in every nation, he that worketh righteousness shall be accepted, Acts 10:35 . An eunuch; in great esteem in courts, especially to attend on queens, to avoid all suspicion: here that prophecy was fulfilled, Isaiah 56:4,5 : though both in the Hebrew and (anciently) in the Greek tongue a eunuch signified more largely, viz. any attendant in the chamber. Candace; a name common to the queens of that country; as all the kings of Egypt were called Pharaohs, and the emperors of Germany are called Caesars. Come to Jerusalem for to worship; being a proselyte, he had been to worship God in that solemn festival of the passover.

And he arose and went: and, behold, a man of Ethiopia, an eunuch {i} of great authority under Candace queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for to worship, (i) A man of great wealth and authority with Candace. Now this word Candace is a common name of all the Queens of Ethiopia.

27. a man of Ethiopia—Upper Egypt, Meroe. an eunuch of great authority—Eunuchs were generally employed for confidential offices in the East, and to some extent are still. Candace—the family name of the queens of Upper Egypt, like Pharaoh, Cæsar, &c. (as appears from classic authors). had come to Jerusalem to worship—that is, to keep the recent feast of Pentecost, as a Gentile proselyte to the Jewish faith. (See Isa 56:3-8, and Joh 12:20).

Verse 27. - Was over for had the charge of , A.V. ; who for and , A.V. Candace. According to Pithy, the queens of Ethiopia, who reigned at Meroc, were so named through a long course of years ('Nat. Hist.,' 6:2,5-37). Dion Cassius speaks of a warlike Queen of Ethiopia of that name, who was brought to terms by Caius Petronius in the year A.U.C. 732 (54:5, 4). Eusebius ('Eccl. Hist.,' lib. it. cap. 1.) says that the custom still continued in his day of the Ethiopians being governed by a queen. Had come to Jerusalem , etc. He was doubtless a proselyte of the gate. Eusebius, in the place above cited, speaks of him as the first Gentile convert, and as the first fruits of the faithful in the whole world. He adds, as Irenaeus before him had hinted (3. 12:8), that he is reported to have preached the gospel to the Ethiopians, by which the prophecy of Psalm 68:31 was fulfilled. Later traditions speak of Candace as baptized by him. Acts 8:27

27 . behold, a man of Ethiopia ] It is better to supply the substantive verb here, “behold there was , &c.” otherwise the conjunction at the commencement of the next verse is left untranslated. Ethiopia, like Cush in the O. T., is a general name given to the country which is now called Nubia and Abyssinia. Its northern portion was the great kingdom of Meroe, which we know was ruled over by queens for a long period (Plin. H. N . vi. 29), and it is from this kingdom, most probably, that the eunuch had come. Jews were abundant in Egypt, and this man had become a proselyte to their religion. under Candace queen of the Ethiopians ] We are told by Pliny (l. c.) that this was the name of a series of queens of Meroe, just as Pharaoh at an early period and Ptolemy subsequently were general names for the kings of Egypt, and Cæsar for the Roman emperors. and had come to Jerusalem for to worship ] As proselytes did, as well as Jews. This we learn from the enumeration of those who were present at the feast of Pentecost ( Acts 2:10 ), among whom proselytes are expressly named. So ( John 12:20 ) we find Greeks coming up to the feasts at Jerusalem.

Acts 8:27 . Καὶ ἰδού ] And behold (there was) a man . Comp. on Matthew 3:17 . εὐνοῦχος δυνάστης ] is, seeing that δυνάστης is a substantive, most simply taken, not conjointly (a power-wielding eunuch , after the analogy of Herod. ii. 32: ἀνδρῶν δυναστέων παῖδες , comp. Sir 8:1 ), but separately: a eunuch, one wielding power , so that there is a double apposition (see Bornemann in loc ). The more precise description, what kind of wielder of power he was, follows (chief treasurer, γαζοφύλαξ , Plut. Mor. p. 823 C; Athen. vi. p. 261 B). The express mention of his sexual character is perhaps connected with the universalism of Luke, in contrast to Deuteronomy 23:1 . In the East, eunuchs were taken not only to be overseers of the harem, but also generally to fill the most important posts of the court and the closet (Pignor. de servis , p. 371 f.; Winer, Realw. s.v. Verschnittene ); hence εὐνοῦχος is often employed generally of court officials, without regard to corporeal mutilation. See de Dieu, in loc. ; Spanheim, ad Julian. Oratt. p. 174. Many therefore (Cornelius a Lapide, de Dieu, Kuinoel, Olshausen) suppose that the Ethiopian was not emasculated, for he is called ἀνήρ and he was not a complete Gentile (as Eusebius and Nicephorus would make him), but, according to Acts 8:30 ff., a Jew, whereas Israelitish citizenship did not belong to emasculated persons ( Deuteronomy 23:1 ; Michaelis, Mos. R. II. § 95, IV. § 185; Ewald, Alterth. p. 218).

But if so, εὐνοῦχος , with which, moreover, the general word ἀνήρ [228] is sufficiently compatible, would be an entirely superfluous term. The very fact, however, that he was an officer of the first rank in the court of a queen , makes it most probable that he was actually a eunuch ; and the objection drawn from Deut. l.c. is obviated by the very natural supposition that he was a proselyte of the gate (comp. on John 12:20 ). That this born Gentile, although a eunuch, had been actually received into the congregation of Israel (Baumgarten), and accordingly a proselyte of righteousness , as Calovius and others assumed, cannot be proved either from Isaiah 56:3-6 , where there is a promise of the Messianic future , in the salvation of which even Gentiles and eunuchs were to share; nor from the example of Ebedmelech, Jeremiah 38:7 ff. (considered by Baumgarten as the type of the chamberlain), of whom it is not said that he was a complete Jew; nor can it be inferred from the distant journey of the man and his quick reception of baptism (Lange, apost. Zeitalt. II. p. 109), which is a very arbitrary inference. Eusebius, ii. 1, also designates him as πρῶτος ἐξ ἐθνῶν , who had been converted. Κανδάκη was, like Pharaoh among the Egyptian kings, the proper name in common of the queens of Ethiopia , which still in the times of Eusebius was governed by queens. See Strabo, xvii. 1. 54, p. 820; Dio Cass. liv. 5; Plin. N. H. iv. 35. 7. Their capital was Napata .

(27) A man of Ethiopia, an eunuch of great authority. —Literally, a eunuch, a potentate. The Ethiopia from which the traveller came was the region so named by the geographers of St. Luke’s time in the upper valley of the Nile. Its connection with the Jewish people presents many points of interest. There seems reason to believe that in the time of Manasseh, who (according to the statement in the narrative of Aristeas as to the LXX. translation) formed an alliance with Psammetichus king of Egypt, a considerable body of Jews were sent off to protect the outposts of his kingdom, and it is in reference, probably, to these that Zephaniah speaks of the suppliants of “the daughter of my dispersed beyond the rivers of Ethiopia” ( Zephaniah 3:10 ). Jewish influences had accordingly been at work there for some centuries. They may probably be traced in the piety of the Ethiopian eunuch, Ebed-melech, in the time of Jeremiah ( Jeremiah 38:7-13 ; Jeremiah 39:16-18 ). Even at an earlier period the hopes of Israel had looked forward to, perhaps had actually seen, the admission of Ethiopians among the citizens of Zion ( Psalm 87:4 ), Ethiopia stretching forth her hands unto God ( Psalm 68:31 ). The fact that the traveller had come as a pilgrim or a proselyte, shows (if, as the narrative implies, the latter) that he was a circumcised “proselyte of righteousness.” His baptism was not, like that of Cornelius, the admission of a Gentile as such.

The word “eunuch” has been taken by some commentators as meaning only “chamberlain,” which is, indeed, the strict etymological sense of the word. Its use in Matthew 19:12 , and indeed in later Greek writers generally, is, however, in favour of the literal sense of the word. The strict letter of Deuteronomy 23:1 , forbidding the admission of such persons into the congregation of the Lord, had been already modified (probably on the assumption that the state was not one which they had brought about by their own act) in favour of the sons of the stranger, the eunuchs “who keep my Sabbaths,” by Isaiah ( Isaiah 56:4 ); and we may well think of St. Luke, as glad to record a proof that the discipline of the Church of Christ was as liberal on this point as the teaching of the Evangelical prophet. It is interesting to note that the first act of the first (Ecumenical Council was to formulate a like rule in dealing with such cases of the kind as then presented themselves ( Conc. Nic. Song of Solomon 1 ), admitting those who were not self-mutilated even into the ranks of the clergy. Under Candace queen of the Ethiopians.—The quantity of the second syllable is uncertain, but the analogy of Canăce is in favour of its being short. The knowledge of the student of Strabo (Strabo, xvii. p. 820) may, perhaps, be traced in the description. He mentions a Queen of Meroè, in Ethiopia, bearing the name of Candace.