Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 5:1-2

"But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession, and kept back [part] of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles` feet." — Acts 5:1-2 (ASV)

A certain man named Ananias.—We encounter the name again as belonging to the high priest in Acts 23:2; it was the Greek form of the Hebrew Hananiah. It had the same significance as John, or Johanan: “The Lord be gracious.”

The name “Sapphira” is either connected with the “sapphire,” as a precious stone, or from a Hebrew word meaning “beautiful” or “pleasant.” The whole history must be read in connection with the act of Barnabas. He, it seemed, had gained praise and power by his self-sacrifice. Ananias thought that he could obtain the same result more cheaply. The act shows a strange mingling of discordant elements. Zeal and faith of some sort had led him to profess himself a believer. Ambition was strong enough to win a partial victory over avarice; avarice was strong enough to triumph over truth.

The impulse to sell came from the Spirit of God; it was counteracted by the spirit of evil, and the resulting sin was therefore worse than that of one who lived altogether in the lower, more common forms of covetousness. It was an attempt to serve God and mammon; to gain the reputation of a saint, without the reality of holiness. The sin of Ananias is, in some aspects, like that of Gehazi (2 Kings 5:20–27), but it was against greater light and intensified by a more profound hypocrisy, and it was therefore visited by a more terrible chastisement. We may well trace in the earnestness with which St. James warns men against the peril of the “double mind”—i.e., the heart divided between the world and God (James 1:8; James 4:8)—the impression made on him by such a history as this.

And kept back part of the price.—The mere act of keeping back would not in itself have been sinful. The money was his own, to give the whole or part (Acts 5:4). But the formal act, apparently reproducing that of Barnabas, was an acted lie. The part was offered as if it were the whole. The word for “kept back” is rendered “purloining” in Titus 2:10, and always carried with it the idea of stealthy and dishonest appropriation. It is used in the LXX. of Joshua 7:1, as describing the sin of Achan.