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Acts

About this book

The Healing at the Temple Gate

Chapter 3

1 Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time for prayer, at three o’clock in the afternoon. 2 And a man lame from birth was being carried up, who was placed at the temple gate called “the Beautiful Gate” every day so he could beg for money from those going into the temple courts.⁠ 3 When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple courts, he asked them for money. 4 Peter looked directly at him (as did John) and said, “Look at us!” 5 So the lame man paid attention to them, expecting to receive something from them. 6 But Peter said, “I have no silver or gold, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, stand up and walk!” 7 Then Peter took hold of him by the right hand and raised him up, and at once the man’s feet and ankles were made strong. 8 He jumped up, stood and began walking around, and he entered the temple courts with them, walking and leaping and praising God. 9 All the people saw him walking and praising God, 10 and they recognized him as the man who used to sit and ask for donations at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, and they were filled with astonishment and amazement at what had happened to him.

Peter Addresses the Temple Crowd

11 While the man was hanging on to Peter and John, all the people, completely astounded, ran together to them in the covered walkway called Solomon’s Portico. 12 When Peter saw this, he declared to the people, “Men of Israel, why are you amazed at this? Why do you stare at us as if we had made this man walk by our own power or piety? 13 The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our forefathers, has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate after he had decided to release him. 14 But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a man who was a murderer be released to you. 15 You killed the Originator of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this fact we are witnesses! 16 And on the basis of faith in Jesus’ name, his very name has made this man—whom you see and know—strong. The faith that is through Jesus has given him this complete health in the presence of you all. 17 And now, brothers, I know you acted in ignorance, as your rulers did too. 18 But the things God foretold long ago through all the prophets—that his Christ would suffer—he has fulfilled in this way. 19 Therefore repent and turn back so that your sins may be wiped out, 20 so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and so that he may send the Messiah appointed for you—that is, Jesus. 21 This one heaven must receive until the time all things are restored, which God declared from times long ago through his holy prophets. 22 Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers.⁠ You must obey him in everything he tells you.⁠ 23 Every person who does not obey that prophet⁠ will be destroyed and thus removed from the people.’ 24 And all the prophets, from Samuel and those who followed him, have spoken about and announced these days. 25 You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your ancestors, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed.’⁠ 26 God raised up his servant and sent him first to you, to bless you by turning each one of you from your iniquities.”

Texts in conversation

Compare 4Q175 5 and Acts 3:22

Dead Sea Scrolls, Biblical Interpretation · New Testament

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Summary

In 4Q175 from the Dead Sea Scrolls, the promise of a prophet like Moses appears beside a prophecy about a coming ruler. Acts identifies Jesus as the promised prophet and urges its audience to obey him.

Passages

4Q175 5

Dead Sea Scrolls, Biblical Interpretation · Testimonia
5 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers, and I will put my words 6 in his mouth, and he will speak to them all that I command him. And the man 7 who does not listen to my words, which the prophet speaks in my name, I myself 8 will call him to account.” 9 And he took up his oracle and said, “The utterance of Balaam son of Beor, the utterance of the man 10 whose eye is perfect, the utterance of one who hears the words of God and knows the knowledge of the Most High, who 11 sees the vision of the Almighty, fallen down with eyes uncovered. I see him, but not now; 12 I behold him, but not near. A star shall march out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel, and it shall crush 13 the temples of Moab and tear down all the sons of Seth.”
160–60 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in 4Q175

Acts 3:22

New Testament
20 so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and so that he may send the Messiah appointed for you—that is, Jesus. 21 This one heaven must receive until the time all things are restored, which God declared from times long ago through his holy prophets. 22 Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers. You must obey him in everything he tells you. 23 Every person who does not obey that prophet will be destroyed and thus removed from the people.’
70–90 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Acts

References

“... Peter presented Jesus not only as the Messiah but also as the prophet like Moses. This idea is developed more fully in 7:37 (see fullest comment there). Moses was not only a prophet but a divinely appointed leader of the nation (once even “king,” Deut 33:5).718 Prophetic endowment was the ideal for any ruler of Israel (cf. 1 Sam 10:6, 11; 16:13; Acts 2:30) but modeled only by a few (Acts 2:30; Judg 4:4; 1 Sam 7:15–17). A prophet “like Moses” was thus a prophet of great rank (Deut 18:19; cf. 33:4–5) with special intimacy with God as well as wonders and signs (34:10–12; Acts 7:36; cf. 2:22). The most important connection offered in Acts, however, is that he was a prophet rejected by his people (Acts 7:35–37); Deuteronomy itself promised a prophet from among the people (Deut 18:15, 18) and warned against disobeying him (18:19). [...] The Qumran scrolls do reveal expectation of an eschatological prophet (1QS IX, 10–11; 11QMelch II, 15–21),743 though they may also apply it (and Deut 18:15–18) to the Teacher of Righteousness, who may have originally filled this role for them. That a Qumran scroll links the Mosaic prophet (4Q175 I, 5–8) with the star from Jacob (Num 24:15–17; 4Q175 I, 9–13) indicates that some Jewish people associated this mission with the future anointed ruler. [...] 745. This does not suggest “literary dependence so much as that Qumran and NT authors breathed the same air of eschatological expectation” and used the same Bible (Brooke, “4Q175,” 1207). Although the text is “messianic” (see, e.g., Villalón, “Deux messies,” 62–63), its messianic figure might not be the Messiah in the usual early Jewish sense; the testimonia probably address the multiple messianic figures held by the sect (cf. Vermes, Scrolls, 247–48). ...”
Craig S. Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary, Volume 2 (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2014), 1113, 1115.

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