Acts 2:14a, 22-32

“God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.” (Acts 2:24)

The lectionary keeps the first half of Peter’s opening line (v. 14a) and then skips the Joel citation to reach the part of the speech that argues from Psalm 16. The argument is scriptural reasoning of a kind common in the period: the psalm promises that God’s holy one will not see corruption (v. 27), David plainly did see corruption, since his tomb is still pointed out in Jerusalem (v. 29), therefore the psalm spoke of someone else. The case depends on the Greek version, which reads “corruption” where the Hebrew has the Pit. The charge in v. 23 holds two things together without reconciling them, God’s “definite plan and foreknowledge” and the hearers’ own act. What the speech ends with is not proof but testimony, “of that we all are witnesses” (v. 32): within weeks of the event, the resurrection is being argued in public from Israel’s own scriptures.

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