Commentaries:
Adam Clarke
Women received their dead - As did the widow of Zarephath, I Kings 17:21, and the Shunammite, II Kings 4:34. What other cases under all the above heads the apostle might have in view, we know not.
Others were tortured - . This is a word concerning the meaning of which the critics are not agreed. signifies a stick, or baton, which was used in bastinadoing criminals. And signifies to beat violently, and is thus explained by the best lexicographers. After considering what others have written on this subject, I am inclined to think that the bastinado on the soles of the feet is what is here designed. That this was a most torturing and dangerous punishment, we learn from the most authentic accounts; and it is practised among the Turks and other Mohammedans to the present day. Mr. Antes, of Fulnek, is Yorkshire, twenty years a resident in Egypt, furnishes the latest account I have met with; he himself was the unhappy subject of his own description. See at the end of this chapter, article 4 (note).
Not accepting deliverance - This looks very like a reference to the case of the mother and her seven sons, mentioned 2 Maccabees 7:1, etc.
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