“But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.”
King James Version (KJV)
8:18 Simon offered them money - And hence the procuring any ministerial function, or ecclesiastical benefice by money, is termed Simony.
8:21 Thou hast neither part - By purchase, nor lot - Given gratis, in this matter - This gift of God. For thy heart is not right before God - Probably St. Peter discerned this long before he had declared it; although it does not appear that God gave to any of the apostles a universal power of discerning the hearts of all they conversed with; any more than a universal power of healing all the sick they came near. This we are sure St. Paul had not; though he was not inferior to the chief of the apostles. Otherwise he would not have suffered the illness of Epaphroditus to have brought him so near to death, #Php 2:25 |- 27; nor have left so useful a fellow labourer as Trophimus sick at Miletus, #2Tim 4:20|.
8:22 Repent - if perhaps the thought of thy heart may be forgiven thee - Without all doubt if he had repented, he would have been forgiven. The doubt was, whether he would repent. Thou art in the gall of bitterness - In the highest degree of wickedness, which is bitterness, that is, misery to the soul; and in the bond of iniquity - Fast bound therewith.
Ac 8:20 Peter said. Peter's outburst of indignation is characteristic. Thy money perish with thee. Not an anathema, but the statement of a fact, unless he repents. Because thou hast thought. Observe that, in Peter's rebukes, the thought is, not that he has never been converted, but that he has now committed an awful sin. It is "one sin", not his "sins", that stands out in every sentence.