Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 8:33

"In his humiliation his judgment was taken away: His generation who shall declare? For his life is taken from the earth." — Acts 8:33 (ASV)

In his humiliation his judgment was taken away.—The Hebrew reads, as in the English version of Isaiah 53:8, which fairly represents its natural construction, “He was taken from prison (or oppression) and from judgment,” that is, He was delivered from His sufferings just when they seemed to culminate. A different meaning has, however, been given to the Hebrew preposition by many scholars, who translate the words, “Through oppression and [unjust] judgment He was taken away”—that is, He was the victim of a judicial murder.

The LXX., which is here followed, seems to have adopted a different construction, “By His humiliation, by His low estate, His judgment (that is, the righteous judgment which was His due) was taken away.” Here also, however, the word “judgment” has been taken in a different sense, and the words have been interpreted as meaning, “His condemnation was taken away, or cancelled”—that is, because He humbled Himself He was afterwards exalted. Assuming Philip to have explained the words as they stand in the LXX., the first of these two latter interpretations is the most compelling. The story of the Passion, the unrighteous sentence passed on the Lord Jesus because He stood before the Council and the Governor as poor and friendless, would be emphasized as filling in the outlines of the prophetic picture.

Who shall declare his generation?—The Hebrew noun may mean, as in Psalms 14:5, the men of a given period, or those sharing a common character. The words have, however, been very variously taken:

1. “Who shall declare the number of those who share His life, and are, as it were, originated from Him”—that is, who can count His faithful disciples?
2. “Who shall declare the wickedness of the crooked and perverse generation in which He lived?”
3. “Who, as far as His generation went, were wise enough to consider?”

Assuming, as before, that it was the LXX. that Philip explained, the second of these seems preferable, as corresponding with the frequent use of the word “generation” with condemnatory epithets attached to it both by our Lord Himself (Matthew 12:39–42; Matthew 16:4; Matthew 17:17) and His Apostles (Acts 2:40; Philippians 2:15).

The sense which some commentators have attributed to it, “Who shall declare His duration?” “Who shall set limits to the life of Him who is One with the Eternal?” or, as others, “Who shall declare the mystery of His mode of birth?”—that is, of the Incarnation—are, it is believed, untenable regarding the Hebrew, and even more so regarding the Greek.

For his life is taken from the earth.—The Hebrew allows for no other meaning than that the Sufferer was hurried to a violent death. The fact that in being thus taken from the earth the Sufferer was exalted to heaven, though true in itself, cannot be found in the words.

We are not concerned here with a detailed explanation, either of the words that precede, or those that follow, the passage quoted in Isaiah 53, but it is difficult to think of Philip as not taking in context as well as text, and unfolding in full, not only the fact of the Passion, but its atoning and redeeming power, as set forth in the prophet’s marvellous prediction.