Acts 2:28

Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(28) Thou hast made known to me the ways of life.—The Apostle does not interpret these words, but we can hardly err in thinking that he would have looked on them also as fulfilled in Christ’s humanity, To Him also the ways of life had been made known, and so even in Hades He was filled with joy (better, perhaps, gladness, as in Acts 14:17), as being in the Paradise of God (Luke 23:43).

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

2:22-36 From this gift of the Holy Ghost, Peter preaches unto them Jesus: and here is the history of Christ. Here is an account of his death and sufferings, which they witnessed but a few weeks before. His death is considered as God's act; and of wonderful grace and wisdom. Thus Divine justice must be satisfied, God and man brought together again, and Christ himself glorified, according to an eternal counsel, which could not be altered. And as the people's act; in them it was an act of awful sin and folly. Christ's resurrection did away the reproach of his death; Peter speaks largely upon this. Christ was God's Holy One, sanctified and set apart to his service in the work of redemption. His death and sufferings should be, not to him only, but to all his, the entrance to a blessed life for evermore. This event had taken place as foretold, and the apostles were witnesses. Nor did the resurrection rest upon this alone; Christ had poured upon his disciples the miraculous gifts and Divine influences, of which they witnessed the effects. Through the Saviour, the ways of life are made known; and we are encouraged to expect God's presence, and his favour for evermore. All this springs from assured belief that Jesus is the Lord, and the anointed Saviour.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Thou hast made known ... - The Hebrew is, "Thou wilt make known to me," etc. In relation to the Messiah, it means, Thou wilt restore me to life.

The ways of life - This properly means the path to life; as we say, the road to preferment or honor; the path to happiness; the highway to ruin, etc. See Proverbs 7:26-27. It means, thou wilt make known to me life itself, that is, thou wilt restore me to life. The expressions in the Psalm are capable of this interpretation without doing any violence to the text; and if the preceding verses refer to the death and burial of the Messiah, then the natural and proper meaning of this is, that he would be restored to life again.

Thou shalt make me full of joy - This expresses the feelings of the Messiah in view of the favor that would thus be showed him; the resurrection from the dead, and the elevation to the right hand of God. It was this which is represented as sustaining him the prospect of the joy that was before him, in heaven, Hebrews 12:2; Ephesians 1:20-22.

With thy countenance - Literally, "with thy face," that is, in thy presence. The words "countenance" and "presence" mean the same thing, and denote "favor," or the "honor and happiness" provided by being admitted to the presence of God. The prospect of the honor that would be bestowed on the Messiah was what sustained him. And this proves that the person contemplated in the Psalm expected to be raised from the dead, and exalted to the presence of God. That expectation is now fulfilled, and the Messiah is now filled with joy in his exaltation to the throne of the universe. He has "ascended to his Father and our Father"; he is "seated at the right hand of God"; he has entered on that "joy which was set before him"; he is "crowned with glory and honor"; and "all things are put under his feet." In view of this, we may remark:

(1) That the Messiah had full and confident expectation that he would rise from the dead. This the Lord Jesus always evinced, and often declared it to his disciples.

(2) if the Saviour rejoiced in view of the glories before him, we should also. We should anticipate with joy an everlasting dwelling in the presence of God, and the high honor of sitting "with him on his throne, as he overcame, and is set down with the Father on his throne."

(3) the prospect of this should sustain us, as it did him, in the midst of persecution, calamity, and trials. Thy will soon be ended; and if we are his friends, we shall "overcome," as he did, and be admitted to "the fulness of joy" above, and to the "right hand" of God, "where are pleasures forevermore."

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

28. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life—that is, resurrection-life.

thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance—that is, in glory; as is plain from the whole connection and the actual words of the sixteenth Psalm.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Thou hast made known to me; God is frequently said to make those mercies known to us which he bestows upon us.

The ways of life; of a true life, which is life indeed. David in these words celebrates God’s delivering of him from his grievous afflictions and exile; in which he was looked upon by others, and by himself, as a dead man, yet was brought again to see the temple, and enjoy the ordinances of God, without which his life was as no life unto him. So our Saviour, after his death and passion, arose, and ascended into heaven, and lives for ever to make intercession for us.

With thy countenance; that is, with thy presence, or manifestation of thy love and favour.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Thou hast made known to me the ways of life,.... That is, thou hast raised me from the dead. When God raised Christ from the dead, he showed him, or made him to know experimentally the way of life, or the way of the resurrection from death to life; and this path of life, or of the resurrection to an immortal and eternal life, was first shown to Christ, who is the first fruits of them that slept, and the first begotten from the dead,

Thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance; or glorious presence, in which is fulness of joy; which Christ, as man, is in, and fully possessed of, being exalted at the right hand of God, and crowned with glory and honour, and has all the joy that was set before him in his sufferings and death.

Geneva Study Bible

Thou hast {u} made known to me the ways of life; thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance.

(u) You have opened to me the way of true life.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

Acts 2:28. Thou hast made known to me ways of life; Thou wilt fill me with joy in presence of Thy countenance, meant by the Psalmist of the divine guidance in saving his life, and of the joy which he would thereafter experience before God, refers, according to its prophetic sense, as fulfilled in Christ, to His resurrection, by which God practically made known to him ways to life, and to his state of exaltation in heaven, where he is in the fulness of blessedness with God.

μετὰ τοῦ προσώπου σου] אֶת־פַּנֶיךָ, in communion with Thy countenance (seen by me). Comp. Hebrews 9:24.

Expositor's Greek Testament

Acts 2:28. ἐγνώρισάς μοι ὁδοὺς ζωῆς: St. Peter quotes from the LXX, which has the plural ὁδούς—so in Proverbs 5:6, where Hebrew has the same word as here in the singular, the LXX translates ὁδοὺς ζωῆς.—μετὰ τοῦ προσώπου σου, “with thy countenance” = “in thy presence,” margin; = Hebrew, “in thy presence”. The LXX πρόσωπον is a literal translation of the Hebrew פָּנִים, face or countenance, in the O.T. The expression is a common one in the O.T., “in God’s presence”; cf. Psalm 4:6; Psalm 17:15; Psalm 21:6; Psalm 140:13. Grimm-Thayer explains (με) ὄντα μετὰ, etc., “being in thy presence” (see sub μετὰ, i. 2 b). The force of the expression is strikingly seen in its repeated use in Numbers 6:25; cf. Exodus 33:14; Oehler, Theologie des A. T., pp. 46, 56, 62, and Westcott, Hebrews, p. 272. And so the Psalm ends as it had begun with God; cf. Acts 2:2, and Acts 2:11. The Psalmist’s thoughts carried him beyond mere temporal deliverance, beyond the changes and chances of this mortal life, to the assurance of a union with God, which death could not dissolve; while as Christians we read with St. Peter a deeper and a fuller meaning still in the words, as we recall the Life, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Him, of Whom it was written: ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

28. thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance] Thus the LXX. paraphrases the Hebrew, which gives “in thy presence is fulness of joy.”

Bengel's Gnomen

Acts 2:28. Ἐγνώρισάς μοι, Thou hast made known to Me) See note, Hebrews 9:12. [The path of life leading to the Father, was an arduous one, even to Christ, Hebrews 5:7; no one had trodden it before. Therefore it is said, “He entered once into the holy place, having found (εὐράμενος) eternal redemption for us:” John 3:13.]—ὁδοὺς ζωῆς, the ways of life) whereby the goal is reached, and one can walk in life. The LXX. give ὁδοὺς; as the rendering of the Hebr. ארח in the singular.—μετὰ τοῦ προσώπου, with Thy countenance) when I am (shall be) with Thee. Hebrews 9:24, “Now to appear in the presence of God for us” (ἐμφανισθῆναι τῷ προσώπῳ τοῦ Θεοῦ).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 28. - Madest for hast made, A.V.; unto for to, A.V.; gladness for joy, A.V. Acts 2:28