Acts 3:11

And as the lame man which was healed held Peter and John, all the people ran together unto them in the porch that is called Solomon's, greatly wondering.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(11) In the porch that is called Solomon’s.—The porch—or better, portico or cloister—was outside the Temple, on the eastern side. It consisted, in the Herodian Temple, of a double row of Corinthian columns, about thirty-seven feet high, and received its name as having been in part constructed, when the Temple was rebuilt by Zerubbabel, with the fragments of the older edifice. The people tried to persuade Herod Agrippa the First to pull it down and rebuild it, but he shrank from the risk and cost of such an undertaking (Jos. Ant. xx. 9, § 7). It was, like the porticos in all Greek cities, a favourite place of resort, especially as facing the morning sun in winter. (See Note on John 10:23.) The memory of what had then been the result of their Master’s teaching must have been fresh in the minds of the two disciples. Then the people had complained of being kept in suspense as to whether Jesus claimed to be the Christ, and, when He spoke of being One with the Father, had taken up stones to stone Him (John 10:31-33). Now they were to hear His name as Holy and Just, as “the Servant of Jehovah,” as the very Christ (Acts 3:13-14; Acts 3:18).

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

3:1-11 The apostles and the first believers attended the temple worship at the hours of prayer. Peter and John seem to have been led by a Divine direction, to work a miracle on a man above forty years old, who had been a cripple from his birth. Peter, in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, bade him rise up and walk. Thus, if we would attempt to good purpose the healing of men's souls, we must go forth in the name and power of Jesus Christ, calling on helpless sinners to arise and walk in the way of holiness, by faith in Him. How sweet the thought to our souls, that in respect to all the crippled faculties of our fallen nature, the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth can make us whole! With what holy joy and rapture shall we tread the holy courts, when God the Spirit causes us to enter therein by his strength!

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Held Peter and John - The word "held" means that he "adhered" to them; he "joined himself" to them; he was desirous of "remaining" with them and "participating" with them. "He clung to his benefactors, and would not be separated from them" (Prof. Hackett).

All the people ... - Excited by curiosity, they came together. The fact of the cure and the conduct of the man would soon draw together a crowd, and thus furnish a favorable opportunity for preaching to them the gospel.

In the porch ... - This "porch" was a covered way or passage on the east side of the temple. It was distinguished for its magnificence. See the plan and description of the temple, notes on Matthew 21:12.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

11. the lame man … held, &c.—This is human nature.

all the people ran together unto them in the porch, &c.—How vividly do these graphic details bring the whole scene before us! Thus was Peter again furnished with a vast audience, whose wonder at the spectacle of the healed beggar clinging to his benefactors prepared them to listen with reverence to his words.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Held Peter and John, in an ecstasy of thankfulness unto them, they having been the instruments of so great a mercy from God towards him; as also out of fear, lest when they were gone he might relapse: he that found so great a change in himself could not but be as much surprised as they that saw the change upon him.

The porch that is called Solomon’s; not that which was built by Solomon, for that was destroyed by the Babylonians, as the rest of the temple was, 2 Kings 25:9; unless some part of this porch might not be consumed by the fire, when the other parts of the temple were burned, some morsel often escaping the jaws of that devouring element, fire; or it may be it was built in the re-edification of the temple, in the same place where Solomon’s porch had stood, and thence called by the former name that was so much remembered. If any wonder that a porch should hold so many thousands of people, inasmuch as five thousand of them are said to be converted, Acts 4:4; this porch is thought not only to have been the court of the Gentiles, and that of the Jews, that is, the outward and inward court; but to have contained a great part of the court of the Gentiles, if the whole court of the Gentiles might not be so called, as being indeed but a porch, or an entrance into the court of the Jews.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And as the lame man which was healed,.... This is left out in the Vulgate Latin, Syriac, and Ethiopic versions, and in the Alexandrian copy, which only read, and as he

held Peter and John; by their clothes or arms, either through fear, lest his lameness should return on their leaving him; or rather out of affection to them for the favour he had received, and therefore hung about them, and was loath to part with them; unless it was to make them known, and point them out as the authors of his cure, that they might be taken notice of by others, and the miracle be ascribed unto them:

all the people ran together unto them; to the man that was healed, and to Peter and John, when they saw him standing, walking, and leaping, and clinging about the apostles; who were

in the porch that is called Solomon's; See Gill on John 10:23.

greatly wondering; at the man that was cured; at the cure that was wrought upon him; and still more at the persons who did it, and the manner in which it was done.

Geneva Study Bible

And as the lame man which was healed {b} held Peter and John, all the people ran together unto them in the porch that is called Solomon's, greatly wondering.

(b) Either because he loved them who had healed him, or because he feared that if he let them go out of his sight that he would become lame again.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

Acts 3:11. Κρατοῦντος] But as he held fast Peter and John, i.e. in the impulse of excited gratitude took hold of them and clung to them, in order not to be separated from his benefactors. Comp. John 20:23; Revelation 2:25; Revelation 3:11; Song of Solomon 3:4 : ἐκράτησα αὐτὸν καὶ οὐκ ἀφῆκα αὐτόν. Polyb. viii. 20. 8; Eur. Phoen. 600; Plut. Mor. p. 99 D. There is no sanction of usage for the meaning commonly given, and still adopted by Olshausen and De Wette: assectari. For in Colossians 2:19 κρατεῖν occurs in its proper sense, to hold fast; the LXX. 2 Samuel 3:6 is not at all in point, and in Achill. Tat. 5 :p. 309, ἐπεχείρει με κρατεῖν is: me retinere conabatur.

As to the porch of Solomon, see on John 10:23.

ἔκθαμβοι] the plural after the collective noun ὁ λαός. Kühner. ad Xen. Anab. ii. 1. 6. Ast, ad Plat. Legg. I. p. 63. Nägelsb. on the Iliad, ii. 278. Comp. Acts 5:16.

Expositor's Greek Testament

Acts 3:11. κρατοῦντος: in his joy and gratitude, “holding them” in a physical sense, although it is possible that it signifies that the healed man joined himself to the Apostles more closely as a follower (Acts 4:14), fearing like the demoniac healed by Christ (Luke 8:38) lest he should be separated from his benefactors, cf. Song of Solomon 3:4.—ἐπὶ τῇ στοᾷ τῇ καλ. Σ.: better “portico,” R.V. margin; colonnade, or cloister (John 10:23). It derived its name from Solomon, and was the only remnant of his temple. A comparison of the notices in Josephus, B. J., v., 5, 1; Ant., xv., 11, 5 and xx., 9, 7, make it doubtful whether the foundations only, or the whole colonnade, should be referred back to Solomon. Ewald’s idea that the colonnade was so called because it was a place of concourse for the wise in their teaching has not found any support: Stanley’s Jewish Church, ii., 184; Edersheim, Temple and its Services, pp. 20, 22, and Keim, Geschichte Jesu, iii., 161. It was situated on the eastern side of the Temple, and so was sometimes called the Eastern Cloister, and from its position it was a favourite resort.—τῇ καλ.: the present participle is used just as the present tense is found in the notice in St. John’s Gospel, chap. Acts 5:2 (see Blass, Philology of the Gospels, pp. 241, 242), and if we cannot conclude from this that the book was composed before the destruction of the Temple, the vividness of the whole scene and the way in which Solomon’s Porch is spoken of as still standing, points to the testimony of an eye-witness. Nösgen argues that this narrative and others in the early chapters may have been derived directly from St. John, and he instances some verbal coincidences between them and the writings of St. John (Apostelgeschichte, p. 28). But if we cannot adopt his conclusions there are good reasons for referring some of these Jerusalem incidents to St. Peter, or to John Mark, see introduction and chap. 12. Feine rightly insists upon this notice and that in Acts 3:2 as bearing the stamp of a true and trustworthy tradition.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

11–26. St Peter’s discourse to the crowd

11. And as the lame man which was healed held Peter, &c.] The oldest MSS. give And as he held Peter, &c. The additional words have crept in from some marginal note of explanation.

the porch that is called Solomon’s] As the name of Solomon was so intimately connected with the Jewish Temple, it is natural enough that one of its porches (or cloisters) should be called after him. There is no account of any such porch in Solomon’s own Temple, but Josephus tells us (Ant. xx. 9. 7) that there was an eastern porch in Herod’s Temple called by this name. The mention of this feature in the building is a sign that the writer, from whom St Luke drew, was one acquainted with the localities about which he speaks, and that the account was written before the fall of Jerusalem, or he would not have said is called, or if he had done so would have been convicted of inconsistency of language by those to whom his work was first presented.

Bengel's Gnomen

Acts 3:11. [Πᾶς ὁ λαὸς, all the people) consisting of those who had met together for public prayer, Acts 3:1.—V. g.]—ἔκθαμβοι, exceedingly amazed) This comprehends amazement and ecstasy.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 11. - He for the lame man which was healed, A.V. and T.R. The words of the T.R. are thought to have crept into the text from the portions read in church beginning here, which made it necessary to supply them. Held; by the hand or otherwise; not have to in the spiritual sense. The porch that is called Solomon's. Josephus tells us that King Solomon built up with masonry only the eastern side of the temple enclosure, and that upon the artificial foundation thus formed one στοά, or covered colonnade, was built, the other sides of the temple in Solomon's time being naked and bare of buildings, but that in process of time, and by an enormous expenditure of treasure, the ground was filled up, leveled, and made firm by the masonry of huge walls all round, and then the circuit of buildings was completed. This eastern στοά, or colonnade, was called Solomon's porch (see John 10:23). Greatly wondering; ἔκθαμβοι, (see note on ver. 10). Acts 3:11

Vincent's Word Studies

The lame man which was healed

The best texts omit. Render as he held.

Held (κρατοῦντος)

Held them firmly, took fast hold. The verb from κράτος, strength.

Greatly wondering (ἔκθαμβοι)

Wondering out of measure (ἐκ). Compare wonder (Acts 3:10).