Our question comes from Acts 8:
Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is a desert place. And he rose and went. And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah. And the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and join this chariot.” So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him, (Acts 8:26 – 31).
Question: “How did Philip know what the -Ethiopian was reading?”
This is a great passage, but if I was ridding in my chariot along a lonely stretch of road, and a man appeared out of nowhere running after me, I’m not sure I would stop and pick him up! Likewise, I wonder how many preachers today could run down a chariot and carry on a conversation, but I’m straying from our question. “How did Philip know the Ethiopian was reading Isaiah?” The Bible says the court official was reading out loud (v. 30).
That was common in those days because writing materials were so expensive. No space was wasted on spaces between words. Books were written that way to save space and money. All the words all ran together! Can you imagine how hard it would be to read if books were written that way today? Here is the passage he was reading written in the ancient style:
Likeasheephewasledtotheslaughterandlikealambbeforeitsshearerissilentsoheopensnothismouth.
Pretty hard to read isn’t it? But if you pronounce each syllable aloud, like a child learning to read, your ear helps you understand what you are reading. Here it is with the spaces restored:
Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter
and like a lamb before its shearer is silent,
so he opens not his mouth.
It wasn’t until the 10th century that people commonly read silently.[1] Now don’t you feel blessed that paper is so inexpensive?
[1] In 383 A.D., Ambrose of Milan was became a famous scholar because he could read silently. Augustine records, “”When he read, his eyes scanned the page and his heart sought out the meaning, but his voice was silent and his tongue was still. Anyone could approach him freely and guests were not commonly announced, so that often, when we came to visit him, we found him reading like this in silence, for he never read aloud.”