Acts 8:33Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

But, if you wish, let us also examine the prophecy itself and what it says. "As a sheep, He was led to the slaughter; in His humiliation His judgment was taken away." From this he learned that Christ was crucified, that His life was taken from the earth, that He committed no sin, that He could save others, that His generation is beyond telling, that the stones were split, that the veil was torn, and that the dead rose from the tombs. Or rather, Philip told him all this on the basis of the reading from the prophet.

"In His humiliation His judgment was taken away." This indicates the lawless judgment against Him, carried out when the truth had been hidden.

"Who shall declare His generation?" That is, who shall declare His high dignity, revealed after the Resurrection, and proved by what He accomplished in the work of the divine economy?

Who will be able to express in words, when it comes to mind who He is and what kind of One He is, that even the Only-begotten Son of God endured all this?

"For His life is taken from the earth" means that His life is removed and raised above earthly things.

This refers to the course of activity and existence of the Only-begotten, when He is contemplated apart from the flesh and no longer as dwelling among us.

"For the Judge of all did not find true judgment, but without any guilt was condemned by the uprising of the Jews and by the voice of Pilate."

Or concerning His divinity, one must understand that it is impossible to know the mysteries of divine generation, of which the Father says, "Before the morning star... Your birth," Ps 109:3.

Or this may be understood of His birth from the Virgin, which can scarcely be explained.

When Mary asks the meaning of this, the angel answers, "The Holy Spirit will come upon You," Lk 1:35.

For only the angel or the Evangelist speaks of the mysteries of His birth, of which in general very little is said.

And now he was returning to his homeland, riding in a carriage and accompanied by his retinue. In accordance with the rules of the rabbis, he spent the time reading Holy Scripture.

At that very moment he was reading aloud, from the Greek translation of the Seventy, the prophecy of Isaiah: "As a sheep He was led to the slaughter. And as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so He does not open His mouth.

In His humiliation His judgment was taken away. But who shall declare His generation? For His life is taken from the earth," Is 53:7-8.

Philip asked him whether he understood what he was reading. The eunuch admitted that all this was dark to him. He invited Philip to sit with him in the carriage and asked who the one was of whom the prophet spoke.

In this way Philip received the opportunity to unfold the Christian interpretation of this great prophecy.

"In His humiliation," that is, in the sufferings caused Him by His enemies, "His judgment," God's judgment concerning Him, which He had to undergo not for His own sins, "was taken away."

"But who shall declare His generation," γενεὰν? Who can portray the generation contemporary with Him, which so humiliated Him and delivered Him to death, and the moral corruption and perversity of that generation?

"For His life is taken from the earth." This generation went so far as to put Him to death, their own Messiah. This is an indescribable distortion of religious and moral sense and of spiritual disposition.

However, the expression "who shall declare His generation" is understood by some, not without foundation, of the inexplicable eternal origin of the Messiah from God.

He is the Only-begotten Son of God, begotten from eternity, cf. Theophylact. Yet this explanation does not fully agree with the use of the word γενεὰ, cf. Mt 11:16.

Cf. Is 53:7-8.

The prophetic words read by the eunuch were referred to the Messiah both by the Jews and by Jesus Christ Himself, see Mt 8:17, as well as by the Apostles, see Mk 15:28; 1 Pet 2:22.

This, of course, could not have been unknown to the Apostle Philip. Perhaps it was also partly known to the eunuch himself.

He had undoubtedly been in Jerusalem more than once and had heard about Jesus Christ and His teaching.

Therefore perhaps he was reading this passage in order to understand it in relation to Jesus Christ.

The prophet Isaiah foretold much about Jesus Christ. Much of what he said was applied by Jesus Christ to Himself.

For Isaiah, above all, portrayed the Messiah as the Sufferer, the Deliverer of men from their sins by His sufferings and death.