The Hyperlinked Bible
Intertextuality Pair
Allusion
Later text
Acts 13:11BSB
Now look, the hand of the Lord is against you, and for a time you will be blind and unable to see the light of the sun.” Immediately mist and darkness came over him, and he groped about, seeking someone to lead him by the hand.
Earlier text
The LORD will afflict you with madness, blindness, and confusion of mind, and at noon you will grope about like a blind man in the darkness. You will not prosper in your ways. Day after day you will be oppressed and plundered, with no one to save you.
Earlier text
Job 19:21BSB
Have pity on me, my friends, have pity, for the hand of God has struck me.
Earlier text
Judges 2:15BSB
Wherever Israel marched out, the hand of the LORD was against them to bring calamity, just as He had sworn to them. So they were greatly distressed.
Earlier text
So the Philistines were subdued, and they stopped invading the territory of Israel. And the hand of the LORD was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel.
Paul's sentence on Elymas — "you will be blind and unable to see the light of the sun... he groped about, seeking someone to lead him by the hand" (Acts 13:11) — falls in the very terms of the covenant curse: "The LORD will afflict you with madness, blindness, and confusion of mind" (Deuteronomy 28:28), so that at noon you grope like a blind man in the dark (28:29). The hand of the Lord, so often saving, here works judgment (cf. Judges 2:15; 1 Samuel 7:13). The connection is analogical: the darkness threatened on covenant-breakers overtakes the sorcerer who fought the gospel, a temporal sign of the spiritual blindness of all who resist the light. Yet the sentence is measured — "for a time" — leaving room for mercy, as befits the servant of the One who came to open the eyes of the blind and who alone turns the groping darkness into sight.