Acts 10:14

Not so, Lord (Mhdamws, kurie). The negative mhdamwv calls for the optative eih (may it not be) or the imperative estw (let it be). It is not oudamwv, a blunt refusal (I shall not do it). And yet it is more than a mild protest as Page and Furneaux argue. It is a polite refusal with a reason given. Peter recognizes the invitation to slay (quson) the unclean animals as from the Lord (kurie) but declines it three times.

For I have never eaten anything (oti oudepote efagon pan). Second aorist active indicative, I never did anything like this and I shall not do it now. The use of pan (everything) with oudepote (never) is like the Hebrew (lo—k"l) though a like idiom appears in the vernacular Koin‚ (Robertson, Grammar, p. 752).

Common and unclean (koinon kai akaqarton). Koinov from epic cunov (cun, sun, together with) originally meant common to several (Latin communis) as in Acts 2:44; Acts 4:32; Titus 1:4; Judges 1:3. The use seen here (also Mark 7:2, Mark 7:5; Romans 14:14; Hebrews 10:29; Revelation 21:27; Acts 10:28; Acts 11:8), like Latin vulgaris is unknown in ancient Greek. Here the idea is made plain by the addition of akaqarton (unclean), ceremonially unclean, of course. We have the same double use in our word "common." See on Mark 7:18 f. where Mark adds the remarkable participle kaqarizwn (making all meats clean), evidently from Peter who recalls this vision. Peter had been reared from childhood to make the distinction between clean and unclean food and this new proposal even from the Lord runs against all his previous training. He did not see that some of God's plans for the Jews could be temporary. This symbol of the sheet was to show Peter ultimately that Gentiles could be saved without becoming Jews. At this moment he is in spiritual and intellectual turmoil.