Your ShelfYour Projects

To Correspondents

25%

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 14, 1860

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 16, No. 13.

Read the full edition

To Correspondents.

By Editor

QUERY. If you please will you notice in the Review Acts ix, 7: "And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice but seeing no man;" and Acts xxii, 9: "And they that were with him saw indeed the light and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of him that spoke to me." Some infer from these two passages a contradiction which cannot be harmonized. A. J. D.
ANSWER. The word rendered hear in both the texts above referred to is akouo, and the word rendered voice is phone. The first of these words is defined, "to hear, hearken, listen to; hear, obey; know, understand;" and the definition of the second is, "a sound, a noise, as of thunder, an articulate sound, voice." The first of the texts is a record of the matter by Luke, and the second is a rehearsal by Paul of his experience; and it is not improbable that they had different ideas to convey according to the different significations of the words used. Thus Luke might wish to relate that they heard a sound or noise but saw no man; without contradicting the statements of Paul, who only wished to state that although they might have heard a sound, a noise, they understood not the voice of him that spoke to him. An instance where the word hear has this meaning is found in 1 Cor. xiv, 2: For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto man but unto God; for no man understandeth him. Here the same word is used that is found in Acts ix, 7, and is rendered understandeth; for while it is true that they would literally hear the voice of him who was speaking with an unknown tongue, it is also true that they would not understand his words. This explanation of the passages in Acts is given by Clarke, Wesley, Wakefield, Macknight, and Whiting.
A. S. H. of Vt. We have always considered Matt. xi, 12 as parallel with Luke xvi, 16. The expression "suffereth violence" might be rendered, to be seized or laid hold on with vehement desire; and the expression "take it by force" is defined in the Lexicon, to claim or seize on with avidity.