Troublesome Topic: PETER AND THE SHEET FULL OF ANIMALS

1

This word, usually rendered “heaven”, also means “sky and air”. However, the figurative meaning of this word indicates that if something is coming down from heaven, it is coming down from God himself.

2

This words means “a container, a vessel, instrument, equipment.” It was a means used to carry things. In this case it had to “hold” lots animals, both large and small.

3

This large piece of cloth was often made of linen, which was known for purity. It was used for a number of things such as bedcovers, sails, awnings, food-preparation surfaces, and even burial wrappings (per Biblehub.com Topical Lexicon). In this passage it is not important what it looked like or what its equivalent was usually used for, the important thing was that it was able to contain many animals.

I have changed my assumptions about the size of this sheet. I used to picture it as a sheet that was about the size of the roof of the house where Peter was praying. But now I think it is probably wiser to picture it as a sheet the size of a pasture – a white pasture rather than a green pasture. We know the animals were alive because God told Peter to rise, kill and eat. So I now picture hundreds or thousands of animals milling about on a large white pasture that was lowered of lifted by its four corners.

4

“four corners” the corresponding Hebrew phrase meant the four corners of the world and the four winds. This effectively indicated every place and everything within the scope of every place.

5

From the use of the word “all” earlier, it seems that the sheet contained all types of the animals in this major category, both clean and unclean examples. Some think that this held animals that other nations ate, but that would also include some clean and some unclean animals.

6

Although the Old Testament placed snakes and other reptiles that crawl on the ground in a different category from those animals that craw on the ground in swarms like the ants, this statement seems to lump them all together.

7

From the description of birds in Leviticus, it appears that the birds that only eat seeds, worms and insects were clean, but those that eat carrion or hunt live animals were unclean. Since this sheet seems to have held all types of animals, it would have held both clean and unclean birds.

8

What is rendered “air” in this situations is the same word rendered “heaven” in verse 11.

9

Fish are not mentioned because the sheet held live animals, but it did not contain water, which is the environment of living fish. Notwithstanding, the implication is that it contained all types of animals, both clean and unclean from every category of animals. While the Old Testament separated animals by making a difference between clean and unclean, this vision lumped them all together – something that Peter would never have imagined.

10

The implication here is that he should kill and eat any of those in the sheet. Peter could have chosen just some of the clean animals because the sheet seemed to contain both clean and unclean, but the intent of the statement was that all these animals should be considered together, without distinctions.

11

Some translations have rendered this phrase “common or clean”, but the use of or is unwarranted. The conjunction used here is usually rendered “and.” Its other meanings are “also, even, too, both, so then” and rarely “but, for, if, or, therefore, when, yet”. You can see from these lists that the idea of “in addition to” is much more likely here than the idea of “in contrast to”. Tying together the word “common” with the word “unclean” by means of “and” was a good reflection of Jewish thought since everything exists in a state that includes two considerations, not just one.

12

The verb form used here is an active verb, meaning that God had actually cleansed something which had formerly been considered unclean; He did not simply call it clean, He actually cleansed it then He told Peter He was calling it clean. Both actions were probably involved, but it started with actual cleansing.

13

According to the Topical Lexicon of the Biblehub.com website, this verb always conveys a passive or causative sense, even when it is an active verb. Therefore, this verb always carries the idea of “to make common or to consider common,” in contrast to a normal active meaning of “to be common.”

14

Three times means that God was really serious, and that Peter was slow in getting the point.

15

This word is usually rendered “immediately,” but the various uses of it in the New Testament make me think that it is better to translate it as “in a direct line from the first to the second thing.” This is not always measured in time, but there is some type of connection between the two.