Commentaries:
Adam Clarke
Hath made of one blood - In AB, some others, with the Coptic, Ethiopic, Vulgate, Itala, Clement, and Bede, the word ̔ , blood, is omitted. He hath made of one (meaning Adam) all nations of men; but ̔ , blood, is often used by the best writers for race, stock, kindred: so Homer, Iliad, vi. ver. 211:
̔ .
\ri720 I glory in being of that same race and blood.
So Virgil, Aen. viii. ver. 142, says;
Sic genus amborum scindit se Sanguine ab uno .
\ri720 Thus, from one stock, do both our stems divide.
See many examples of this form in Kypke. The Athenians had a foolish notion that they were self-produced, and were the aboriginals of mankind. Lucian ridicules this opinion, , . The Athenians say that the first men sprung up in Attica, like radishes. Luc. Philo-pseud. 3.
To dwell on all the face of the earth - God in his wisdom produced the whole human race from one man; and, having in his providence scattered them over the face of the earth, by showing them that they sprang from one common source, has precluded all those contentious wars and bloodshed which would necessarily have taken place among the nations of the world, as each in its folly might have arrogated to itself a higher and more excellent origin than another.
And hath determined the times before appointed - Instead of , the times before appointed, ABDE, and more than forty others, with both the Syriac, all the Arabic, the Coptic, Ethiopic, MS. Slavonian, Vulgate, and Itala, read , the appointed times. The difference between the two words is this: signifies to place before others; but is to command, decree, appoint. The , are the constituted or decreed times; that is, the times appointed by his providence, on which the several families should go to those countries where his wisdom designed they should dwell. See Genesis 10:5-32; and see Pearce and Rosenmuller.
And the bounds of their habitations - Every family being appointed to a particular place, that their posterity might possess it for the purposes for which infinite wisdom and goodness gave them their being, and the place of their abode. Every nation had its lot thus appointed by God, as truly as the Israelites had the land of Canaan. But the removal of the Jews from their own land shows that a people may forfeit their original inheritance, and thus the Canaanites have been supplanted by the Jews; the Jews by the Saracens; the Saracens by the Turks; the Greeks by the Romans; the Romans by the Goths and Vandals; and so of others. See the notes on Genesis 11:1-32 (note).
Other Adam Clarke entries containing Acts 17:26:
Genesis 11:4
Leviticus 17:11
Deuteronomy 32:8
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