Commentaries:
Adam Clarke
Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel - Bp. Pearce paraphrases the words thus: Him having been given forth; i.e. sent into the world, and manifested by being made flesh, and dwelling among you, as it is said in John 1:14; see also Acts 4:28.
Kypke contends that , delivered, does not refer to God, but to Judas the traitor "the Jews received Jesus, delivered up to them by Judas; the immutable counsel of God so permitting."
By the determinate counsel, ̔ͅ ͅ ; that counsel of God which defined the time, place, and circumstance, according ( ) to his foreknowledge, which always saw what was the most proper time and place for the manifestation and crucifixion of his Son; so that there was nothing casual in these things, God having determined that the salvation of a lost world should be brought about in this way; and neither the Jews nor Romans had any power here, but what was given to them from above. It was necessary to show the Jews that it was not through Christ' s weakness or inability to defend himself that he was taken; nor was it through their malice merely that he was slain; for God had determined long before, from the foundation of the world, Revelation 13:8, to give his Son a sacrifice for sin; and the treachery of Judas, and the malice of the Jews were only the incidental means by which the great counsel of God was fulfilled: the counsel of God intending the sacrifice, but never ordering that it should be brought about by such wretched means. This was permitted; the other was decreed. See the observations at the end of this chapter.
By wicked hands have crucified and slain - I think this refers to the Romans, and not to the Jews; the former being the agents, to execute the evil purposes of the latter. It is well known that the Jews acknowledged that they had no power to put our Lord to death, John 18:31, and it is as well known that the punishment of the cross was not a Jewish, but a Roman, punishment: hence we may infer that by , by the hands of the wicked, the Romans are meant, being called , without law, because they had no revelation from God; whereas the others had what was emphatically termed ̔ , the law of God, by which they professed to regulate their worship and their conduct. It was the Jews, therefore, who caused our Lord to be crucified by the hands of the heathen Romans.
Other Adam Clarke entries containing Acts 2:23:
Deuteronomy 18:22
Acts 2:47
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