Acts 3:17

17 And now, brethren, I know that you did it through ignorance: as did also your rulers.

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 the author of life you killed, whom God hath raised from the dead: of which we are witnesses.

16 And in the faith of his name, this man, whom you have seen and known, hath his name strengthened. And the faith which is by him hath given this perfect soundness in the sight of you all.

17 And now, brethren, I know that you did it through ignorance: as did also your rulers.

18 But those things which God before had shewed by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled.

19 Be penitent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out.