Untitled Sermon (5)
20 And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.”
21 So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
22 And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.”
23 And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.
24 And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so.
25 And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, ‘Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza’. The word now brings out the contrast between this verse and the preceding one implied by the Greek: Peter and John went on their way to Jerusalem (v. 25, men), but an angel of the Lord directed Philip further south (v. 26, de). Alerted to the way in which Philip had been identified as a prophet (being filled with the Spirit, working signs and wonders, proclaiming the word of God), we may discern in this narrative certain parallels with the prophet Elijah. Philip is addressed by an angel of the Lord (cf. 2 Ki. 1:15), moved from place to place by the Spirit (8:29, 39; cf. 1 Ki. 18:12), and runs down the road with the chariot of an important person (8:30; cf. 1 Ki. 18:46). References to an angel and the Spirit highlight the fact that the initiative in this mission is entirely with God. It is unclear whether Philip and the Ethiopian were approaching Gaza on the direct route to Jerusalem or on the coast road. It is also unclear whether Gaza here means the old deserted city, which was destroyed by Alexander Jannaeus 96 BC, or the newer city which replaced it in 56 BC (hautē estin erēmos, ‘this is desert’, might apply either to Gaza or to the road). Since the action takes place on the road, the city itself plays no part in the story, and TNIV is probably right to translate the desert road. More significantly, the angelic command took Philip away from ‘the scene of successful evangelism and led him to a place which must have seemed entirely inappropriate for further Christian work’. It is possible that the expression translated south (kata mesēmbrian) should be rendered ‘at midday’, which would make the divine command to meet a traveler on a hot desert road at that time all the more unusual.