Acts 3:17

17 "And now, brethren, I know that you acted ¹in ignorance, just as your ²rulers did also.

Acts 3:17 Meaning and Commentary

Acts 3:17

And now, brethren
He calls them brethren, because they were so according to the flesh; and to testify his cordial love and affection for them. I wot,
or "I know", that through ignorance ye did it;
delivered up Jesus into the hands of Pilate; denied him to be the Messiah before him; preferred a murderer to him, and put him to death. As did also your rulers;
the members of the sanhedrim, some of them; see ( 1 Corinthians 2:8 ) for others of them knew him to be the Messiah, to be sent of God, by the miracles he did, and yet blasphemously ascribed them to Satan; and so sinning against light and knowledge, in such a malicious manner, sinned the sin against the Holy Ghost, to which ignorance is here opposed; and which did not excuse from sin: nor was it itself without sin; nor is it opposed to any sin, but to this now mentioned.

Acts 3:17 In-Context

15 but put to death the Prince of life, the one whom God raised from the dead, a fact to which we are witnesses.

16 "And on the basis of faith in His name, it is the name of Jesus which has strengthened this man whom you see and know; and the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect health in the presence of you all.

17 "And now, brethren, I know that you acted in ignorance, just as your rulers did also.

18 "But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled.

19 "Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord ;

Cross References

• 1. Luke 23:34; John 15:21; Acts 13:27; Acts 26:9; Ephesians 4:18
• 2. Luke 23:13