NOTES for Act 8:26-40
26 And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert. |
27 And he arose and went: and, behold, a man of Ethiopia, an eunuch of great authority under Candace queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for to worship, |
28 Was returning, and sitting in his chariot read Esaias the prophet. |
29 Then the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself to this chariot. |
30 And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Esaias, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest? |
31 And he said, How can I, except some man should guide me? And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him. |
32 The place of the scripture which he read was this, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth: |
33 In his humiliation his judgment was taken away: and who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken from the earth. |
34 And the eunuch answered Philip, and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself, or of some other man? |
35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus. |
36 And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? |
37 And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. |
38 And he commanded the chariot to stand still: and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him. |
39 And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more: and he went on his way rejoicing. |
40 But Philip was found at Azotus: and passing through he preached in all the cities, till he came to Caesarea. |
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It would hardly have occurred to Philip to go preach on an empty road, but the Angel of the Lord directly intervenes in the ministry of preaching and sends him there at the very moment when the Ethiopian official is about to pass along it. This encounter cannot be called ordinary, and not only because it happened through a direct angelic prompting. The encounter itself became the embodiment of the prophecy of Isaiah, the book the Ethiopian was reading.
That the foreigner was a Jew by faith is not surprising: by that time faith in the God of Israel had already gone beyond the boundaries of the Jewish people, so it is no wonder that the Ethiopian was reading the book of the prophet Isaiah. What is striking is the court official's humility, his readiness to listen to an interpretation from an ordinary-looking person he met on the road.
Immediately after Philip revealed to the Ethiopian eunuch, whose name remains unknown to us, the meaning of the prophecy, he wanted to be baptized. He did not need a long catechumenate, and not only because he himself was already ready for it.
After parting from Philip, the Ethiopian must have continued reading Isaiah, and a few turns of the scroll later he was going to read the prophecy that the Lord would accept even eunuchs, to whom He would give "an everlasting name that shall not be cut off" (Isa 56:5), and foreigners, "for My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples" (Isa 56:7).
Readings for 23 April 2026
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