Later text
Acts 18:6BSB
But when they opposed and insulted him, he shook out his garments and told them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent of it. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.”
Intertextuality Pair
Acts 18:6 → 1 Samuel 1:16
Echo
Earlier text
Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; for all this time I have been praying out of the depth of my anguish and grief."
+ 1 more earlier text
Earlier text
Again the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Son of man, speak to your people and tell them: ‘Suppose I bring the sword against a land, and the people of that land choose a man from among them, appointing him as their watchman, and he sees the sword coming against that land and blows the ram’s horn to warn the people. Then if anyone hears the sound of the horn but fails to heed the warning, and the sword comes and takes him away, his blood will be on his own head. Since he heard the sound of the horn but failed to heed the warning, his blood will be on his own head. If he had heeded the warning, he would have saved his life. But if the watchman sees the sword coming and fails to blow the horn to warn the people, and the sword comes and takes away a life, then that one will be taken away in his iniquity, but I will hold the watchman accountable for his blood.’ As for you, O son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word from My mouth and give them the warning from Me. If I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you will surely die,’ but you do not speak out to dissuade him from his way, then that wicked man will die in his iniquity, yet I will hold you accountable for his blood. But if you warn the wicked man to turn from his way, and he does not turn from it, he will die in his iniquity, but you will have saved your life.
Significance
Paul's response to Jewish opposition at Corinth — shaking out his garments and declaring, "Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent of it" (Acts 18:6) — is a prophetic sign of dissociation, clearing him of responsibility for those who reject the gospel. The gesture recalls Nehemiah's shaking out of his garment against covenant-breakers (Nehemiah 5:13) and, more substantially, Ezekiel's watchman charge, by which the messenger who faithfully warns is guiltless of the hearer's blood (Ezekiel 33:1-9; see the companion pair). The link to Hannah's plea in 1 Samuel 1:16 — that she not be taken for a worthless woman — is faint, resting only on the shared note of clearing oneself before a hostile or mistaken judgment. What abides is the gospel gravity of Paul's act: having discharged his commission, he turns to the Gentiles, and the guilt of refusing Christ rests on those who refuse him.
- Found via
- G.K. Beale & D.A. Carson (eds.), Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (2007)
- Reference Type
- Echo
- Connection Method(s)
- Analogy