NT Text: Acts 1:15
OT Source(s):
Source: John Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible (1763)
Reference Type: Echo
Connection Method(s): None
Anchor Text: Psalm 2 — You Are My Son
Significance: The connection rests on a single Lukan phrase: epi to auto ("together," literally "in the same place"), used of the gathered company of about a hundred and twenty in 1:15 and recurring through Luke's portraits of the earliest community (2:1, 44, 47). The same phrase stands in Psalm 2:2 LXX — "the kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers gathered together (synēchthēsan epi to auto) against the LORD and against His Anointed" — which Luke quotes in full at Acts 4:25-26. Some interpreters have suggested Luke uses epi to auto almost technically for the assembled messianic community, so that an ironic counter-image emerges: while the rulers gather "together" against the Anointed (4:26), the believers gather "together" around Him. The verbal volume is low — epi to auto is common LXX and Koine idiom — and no argument in Acts 1 depends on Psalm 2, so the link is rightly classified an echo carrying no load-bearing connection method. Its value is contextual rather than exegetical: it shows how saturated Luke's vocabulary of assembly is with the psalter's language, and it prepares the reader for the explicit citation of Psalm 2:1-2 in the community's prayer three chapters later, where the conspiracy of rulers "gathered together" against God's Anointed is identified with Herod, Pilate, the Gentiles, and the peoples of Israel (4:27). If the echo is heard, the contrast between the two gatherings is deliberate; if not, nothing in Luke's argument is lost.