sceva Summary and Overview

an implement, a Jew, chief of the priests at Ephesus (Acts 19:13-16); i.e., the head of one of the twenty-four courses of the house of Levi. He had seven sons, who "took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus," in imitation of Paul. They tried their method of exorcism on a fierce demoniac, and failed. His answer to them was to this effect (19:15): "The Jesus whom you invoke is One whose authority I acknowledge; and the Paul whom you name I recognize to be a servant or messenger of God; but what sort of men are ye who have been empowered to act as you do by neither?" (Lindsay on the Acts of the Apostles.)

a Jew residing at Ephesus at the time of St. Paul's second visit to that town. #Ac 19:14-16| (A.D. 52.)

SCE'VA (fitted), an Ephesian Jewish priest whose seven sons practised exorcism. Acts 19:14. SCHISM means a rupture or separation, 1 Cor 12:25, but it is supposed to denote in this passage any such alienation of feeling among Christians as violates the spiritual union which ought to exist among them, though there be no doctrinal error or separate communions.

A "chief priest", i.e. once having been high priest, or else chief of the priests at Ephesus, or of one of the 24 courses. His seven sons, Jews, exorcised demons in Jesus' name, whereupon the demon-possessed leaped on two of them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of the house naked and wounded: (Acts 19:14-16; the Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and Alexandrinus manuscripts read "prevailed against both".)