Commentaries:
Barnes' Notes
Pray ye ... - Here remark:
(1) That Simon was directed to pray for himself Acts 8:22, but he had no disposition to do it, but was willing to ask others to do it for him. Sinners will often ask others to pray for them, when they are too proud, or too much in love with sin, to pray for themselves.
(2) The main thing that Peter wished to impress on him was a sense of his sin. Simon did not regard this, but looked only to the punishment. He was terrified and alarmed; he sought to avoid future "punishment," but he had no alarm about his "sins." So it is often with sinners. So it was with Pharaoh Exodus 8:28, Exodus 8:32, and with Jeroboam I Kings 13:6. Sinners often quiet their own consciences by asking ministers and Christian friends to pray for them, while "they" still purpose to persevere in iniquity. If people expect to be saved, they must pray "for themselves" ; and pray not chiefly to be freed from "punishment," but from the "sin which deserves hell." This is all that we hear of Simon in the New Testament; and the probability is, that, like many other sinners, he did not pray for himself, but continued to live in the gall of bitterness, and died in the bond of iniquity. The testimony of antiquity is decided on that point. See the notes on Acts 8:9.
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