Commentaries:
Adam Clarke
Peter put them all forth, and kneeled down and prayed - It was not even known to Peter that God would work this miracle: therefore he put all the people out, that he might seek the will of God by fervent prayer, and during his supplications be liable neither to distraction nor interruption, which he must have experienced had he permitted this company of weeping widows to remain in the chamber.
And turning - to the body - , The lifeless body, for the spirit had already departed.
Said, Tabitha, arise - During his wrestling with God, he had, undoubtedly, received confidence that she would be raised at his word.
And when she saw Peter, she sat up - As Dorcas was a woman so eminently holy, her happy soul had doubtless gone to the paradise of God. Must she not therefore be filled with regret to find herself thus called back to earth again? And must not the remembrance of the glories she had now lost fill her with dislike to all the goods of earth? No: for,
1.As a saint of God, her Maker' s will must be hers; because she knew that this will must be ever best.
2.It is very likely that, in the case of the revivescence of saint or sinner, God mercifully draws a veil over all they have seen or known, so that they have no recollection of what they have either seen or heard. Even St. Paul found it impossible to tell what he had heard in the third heaven, though he was probably not in the state of the dead. Of the economy of the invisible world God will reveal nothing. We walk here by faith, and not by sight.
Other Adam Clarke entries containing Acts 9:40:
Ephesians 3:14
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