Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 4:9

"if we this day are examined concerning a good deed done to an impotent man, by what means this man is made whole;" — Acts 4:9 (ASV)

If we this day be examined.—The word is used in its technical sense of a judicial interrogation, as in Luke 23:14. It is used by Saint Luke and Saint Paul (Acts 12:19; Acts 24:8; 1 Corinthians 2:14–15; 1 Corinthians 4:3–4), and by them only, in the New Testament.

Of the good deed.—Strictly, the act of beneficence. There is a manifest emphasis on the word as contrasted with the contemptuous “this thing” of the question. It meets us again in 1 Timothy 6:2.

By what means he is made whole.—Better, this man. The pronoun assumes the presence of the man who had been made able to walk. (Compare John 9:15.) The verb, as in our Lord’s words, Thy faith hath made thee whole (Mark 10:52; Luke 7:50), has a pregnant, underlying meaning, suggesting the thought of a spiritual as well as bodily restoration.