What Does Acts 5:6 Mean?

(6) **And the young men arose.**—Literally, *the younger men, *implying the existence of a distinct body as contrasted with the “elders” of the Church. So in Luke 20:26 we find the same word answering in the parallel clause to “him that serveth,” and opposed to “elders,” where the latter word seems used in a half official sense rather than of age only. We find here, accordingly, rather than in Acts 6, the germ of the later diaconate as a body of men set apart for the subordinate services of the community. The special work here done by them was afterwards assigned to the *Fossarii, *the sextons, or grave-diggers of the Church. **Wound him up.**—The word in this sense is found here only in the New Testament. It implies the hurried wrapping in a winding-sheet. It was followed by the immediate interment outside the walls of the city. Custom, resting partly on the necessities of climate, partly on the idea of ceremonial defilement, as caused by contact with a corpse (Numbers 19:11-16), required burial to follow quickly on death, unless there was a more or less elaborate embalmment. In the act itself we note something like a compassionate respect. There is a reverence for humanity, as such, perhaps for the body that had once been the temple of the Spirit (1Corinthians 6:19), that will not permit men to do as the heathen did, and to inflict dishonour on the lifeless corpse. The narrative implies that the new society had already a burial-place to which they had free right of access. Was it in the Potter’s Field that had been bought to bury strangers in? (Matthew 27:7.) Did the body of Ananias rest in the same cemetery with that of Judas? (See Note on Matthew 27:8.)