Acts 8:30

8:30 So Philip ran up to it and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. He asked him, “Do you understand what you’re reading?”

Acts 22:9

22:9 Those who were with me saw the light, but did not understand the voice of the one who was speaking to me.

Acts 28:26

28:26 when he said,

Go to this people and say,

You will keep on hearing, but will never understand,

and you will keep on looking, but will never perceive.


tn The participle προσδραμών (prosdramwn) is regarded as attendant circumstance.

tn The words “to it” are not in the Greek text but are implied.

tn Grk “heard him”; the referent (the man) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

tn Grk “and he.” Because of the length of the Greek sentence, the conjunction καί (kai) has not been translated here. Instead a new English sentence is begun.

tn Grk “he said”; but since what follows is a question, it is better English style to translate the introduction to the question “he asked him.”

tn Grk “did not hear” (but see Acts 9:7). BDAG 38 s.v. ἀκούω 7 has “W. acc. τὸν νόμον understand the law Gal 4:21; perh. Ac 22:9; 26:14…belong here.” If the word has this sense here, then a metonymy is present, since the lack of effect is put for a failure to appreciate what was heard.

tn Grk “you will hear with hearing” (an idiom).

tn Or “seeing”; Grk “you will look by looking” (an idiom).