Acts 7:21

When he was cast out (ekteqento autou). Genitive absolute with first aorist passive participle of ektiqhmi. Took up (aneilato). Second aorist middle indicative (with first aorist vowel a instead of e as often in the Koin) of anairew, common in the N.T. in the sense of take up and make away with, to kill as in verse Exodus 28 , but here only in the N.T. in the original sense of taking up from the ground and with the middle voice (for oneself). Quoted here from Exodus 2:5 . The word was used of old for picking up exposed children as here. Vincent quotes Aristophanes (Clouds, 531): "I exposed (the child), and some other women, having taken it, adopted (aneileto) it." Vulgate has sustulit. "Adopted" is the idea here. "After the birth of a child the father took it up to his bosom, if he meant to rear it; otherwise it was doomed to perish" (Hackett). Nourished him for her own son (aneqrepsato auton eauth ei uion). Literally, "she nursed him up for herself (eauth besides middle voice) as a son." This use of ei=as occurs in the old Greek, but is very common in the LXX as a translation of the Hebrew le. The tradition is that she designed Moses for the throne as the Pharaoh had no son (Josephus, Ant. ii. 9, 7).