Priest living at the time of the New Testament
Sceva was a Jewish chief priest whose seven sons attempted to exorcise demons in the name of Jesus, as mentioned in the book of Acts.
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Sceva is mentioned in Act.19.14 as a Jewish chief priest whose seven sons were involved in the practice of exorcism. The context of this passage is Paul's ministry in Ephesus, where he performed extraordinary miracles, and many people were delivered from evil spirits (Act.19.11-12). Some itinerant Jewish exorcists, including the seven sons of Sceva, attempted to invoke the name of Jesus over those possessed by evil spirits, saying, "We exorcise you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches" (Act.19.13). However, when they tried to exorcise a man with an evil spirit, the spirit responded, "Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?" (Act.19.15). The possessed man then overpowered the sons of Sceva, and they fled naked and wounded.
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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. (Acts 19:14-16) (A.D. 52.)
SCE'VA (fitted), an Ephesian Jewish priest whose seven sons practised exorcism. Acts 19:14.
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.
Easton (1897), Smith (1863), Hitchcock (1869), Hastings (1898) and Schaff are in the public domain. Parsed text: neuu-org/bible-dictionary-dataset (CC BY 4.0). Headwords and whitespace normalised for this site.
1 verse in 1 book · English text: BSB (change it from the menu at the top) · Strong’s G4630
Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this.
Names, family links and references: STEPBible TIPNR (Tyndale House Cambridge, CC BY 4.0). Short descriptions were drafted with AI assistance by STEPBible. Family links follow STEPBible’s scholarly decisions where genealogies are ambiguous.