Psalm 58:8

Hebrew Bible

6 O God, break the teeth in their mouths! Smash the jawbones of the lions, O Lord. 7 Let them disappear like water that flows away. Let them wither like grass. 8 Let them be like a snail that melts away as it moves along. Let them be like stillborn babies that never see the sun. 9 Before the kindling is even placed under your pots, he will sweep it away along with both the raw and cooked meat. 10 The godly will rejoice when they see vengeance carried out; they will bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked.

Acts 13:11

New Testament

9 But Saul (also known as Paul), filled with the Holy Spirit, stared straight at him 10 and said, “You who are full of all deceit and all wrongdoing, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness—will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord? 11 Now look, the hand of the Lord is against you, and you will be blind, unable to see the sun for a time!” Immediately mistiness and darkness came over him, and he went around seeking people to lead him by the hand. 12 Then when the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed because he was greatly astounded at the teaching about the Lord. 13 Then Paul and his companions put out to sea from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia, but John left them and returned to Jerusalem.

 Notes and References

"... Acts 13:11 ... Wilcox is the first to have suggested that the phrase 'blind, not seeing the sun' is an Old Testament citation. He insists that the source is not the Masoretic Text or the LXX but the Targum of Psalm 58 which has added the term smyyn (blind) in its Aramaic translation. He adduces this, cautiously, as an aberrant citation .. perhaps one could agree with Wilcox that Acts 13:11 is a targumic citation, but it seems preferable to appeal to the version (LXX, Targum, Syriac) Genesis Rabbah and Acts as witnesses to such a Semitic cition in Jewish tradition ... the author wishes to draw a parallel between the blindness of Bar-Jesus and that of Paul in 9:8-9. Acts 13:11 may be related to Psalm 58 in the realm of idiom, but can hardly be classified as a citation ..."

Richard, Earl The Old Testament in Acts: Wilcox's Semitisms in Retrospect (pp. 330-341) The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Vol. 42, No. 3, 1980

 User Comments

Do you have questions or comments about these texts? Please submit them here.