privily?--Mark the intended contrast between the public insult they had inflicted and the private way in which they ordered them to be off.
nay verily--no, indeed.
but let them come themselves and fetch us out--by open and formal act, equivalent to a public declaration of their innocence.
38. they feared when they heard they were Romans--their authority being thus imperilled; for they were liable to an action for what they had done.
39-40. And they came--in person.
and besought them--not to complain of them. What a contrast this suppliant attitude of the preachers of Philippi to the tyrannical air with which they had the day before treated the preachers! (See [Is 60:14]; [Re 3:9]).
brought them out--conducted them forth from the prison into the street, as insisted on.
and desired--"requested."
them to depart out of the city--perhaps fearing again to excite the populace.
Chapter 17
Ac 17:1-15. At Thessalonica the Success of Paul's Preaching Endangering His Life, He Is Despatched by Night to Berea, Where His Message Meets with Enlightened Acceptance--A Hostile Movement from Thessalonica Occasions His Sudden Departure from Berea--He Arrives at Athens
1. when they had passed through Amphipolis--thirty-three miles southwest of Philippi, on the river Strymon, and at the head of the gulf of that name, on the northern coast of the Ægean Sea.
and Apollonia--about thirty miles southwest of Amphipolis; but the exact site is not known.
they came to Thessalonica--about thirty-seven miles due west from Apollonia, at the head of the Thermaic (or Thessalonian) Gulf, at the northwestern extremity of the Ægean Sea; the principal and most populous city in Macedonia. "We see at once how appropriate a place it was for one of the starting-points of the Gospel in Europe, and can appreciate the force of what Paul said to the Thessalonians within a few months of his departure from them: "From you, the word of the Lord sounded forth like a trumpet, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place,"" ([1Th 1:8]) [Howson].
where was a synagogue of the Jews--implying that (as at Philippi) there was none at Amphipolis and Apollonia.
2-4. Paul, as his manner was--always to begin with the Jews.
went in unto them--In writing to the converts but a few months after this, he reminds them of the courage and superiority to indignity, for the Gospel's sake, which this required after the shameful treatment he had so lately experienced at Philippi ([1Th 2:2]).
5-9. the Jews ... moved with envy--seeing their influence undermined by this stranger.
lewd fellows of the baser sort--better, perhaps, "worthless market people," that is, idle loungers about the market-place, of indifferent character.
gathered a company--rather, "having raised a mob."
assaulted the house of Jason--with whom Paul and Silas abode ([Ac 17:7]), one of Paul's kinsmen, apparently ([Ro 16:21]), and from his name, which was sometimes used as a Greek form of the word Joshua [Grotius], probably a Hellenistic Jew.
sought to bring them--Jason's lodgers.
10-12. the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night--for it would have been as useless as rash to attempt any further preaching at that time, and the conviction of this probably made his friends the more willing to pledge themselves against any present continuance of missionary effort.
unto Berea--fifty or sixty miles southwest of Thessalonica; a town even still of considerable population and importance.
13. the Jews of Thessalonica ... came thither also--"like hunters upon their prey, as they had done before from Iconium to Lystra" [Howson].
14. immediately the brethren--the converts gathered at Berea.
sent away Paul--as before from Jerusalem ([Ac 9:30]), and from Thessalonica ([Ac 17:10]). How long he stayed at Berea we know not; but as we know that he longed and expected soon to return to the Thessalonians ([1Th 2:17]), it is probable he remained some weeks at least, and only abandoned his intention of revisiting Thessalonica at that time when the virulence of his enemies there, stimulated by his success at Berea, brought them down thither to counterwork him.
to go as it were to the sea--rather, perhaps, "in the direction of the sea." Probably he delayed fixing his next destination till he should reach the coast, and the providence of God should guide him to a vessel bound for the destined spot. Accordingly, it was only on arriving at Athens, that the convoy of Berean brethren, who had gone thus far with him, were sent back to bid Silas and Timothy follow him thither.
Silas and Timotheus abode there still--"to build it up in its holy faith, to be a comfort and support in its trials and persecutions, and to give it such organization as might be necessary" [Howson]. Connecting this with the apostle's leaving Timothy and Luke at Philippi on his own departure (see on [Ac 16:40]), we may conclude that this was his fixed plan for cherishing the first beginning of the Gospel in European localities, and organizing the converts. Timotheus must have soon followed the apostle to Thessalonica, the bearer, probably, of one of the Philippian "contributions to his necessity" ([Php 4:15], ), and from thence he would with Silas accompany him to Berea.
15. Silas and Timotheus to come to him with all speed--He probably wished their company and aid in addressing himself to so new and great a sphere as Athens. Accordingly it is added that he "waited for them" there, as if unwilling to do anything till they came. That they did come, there is no good reason to doubt (as some excellent critics do). For though Paul himself says to the Thessalonians that he "thought it good to be left at Athens alone" ([1Th 3:1]), he immediately adds that he "sent Timotheus to establish and comfort them" ([Ac 17:2]); meaning, surely, that he despatched him from Athens back to Thessalonica. He had indeed sent for him to Athens; but, probably, when it appeared that little fruit was to be reaped there, while Thessalonica was in too interesting a state to be left uncherished, he seems to have thought it better to send him back again. (The other explanations which have been suggested seem less satisfactory). Timotheus rejoined the apostle at Corinth ([Ac 18:5]).
Ac 17:16-34. Paul at Athens
16-17. wholly given to idolatry--"covered with idols"; meaning the city, not the inhabitants. Petronius, a contemporary writer at Nero's court, says satirically that it was easier to find a god at Athens than a man. This "stirred the spirit" of the apostle. "The first impression which the masterpieces of man's taste for art left on the mind of St. Paul was a revolting one, since all this majesty and beauty had placed itself between man and his Creator, and bound him the faster to his gods, who were not God. Upon the first contact, therefore, which the Spirit of Christ came into with the sublimest creations of human art, the judgment of the Holy Ghost--through which they have all to pass--is set up as "the strait gate," and this must remain the correct standard for ever" [Baumgarten].
18-21. certain ... of the Epicureans--a well-known school of atheistic materialists, who taught that pleasure was the chief end of human existence; a principle which the more rational interpreted in a refined sense, while the sensual explained it in its coarser meaning.
and of the Stoics--a celebrated school of severe and lofty pantheists, whose principle was that the universe was under the law of an iron necessity, the spirit of which was what is called the Deity: and that a passionless conformity of the human will to this law, unmoved by all external circumstances and changes, is the perfection of virtue. While therefore the Stoical was in itself superior to the Epicurean system, both were alike hostile to the Gospel. "The two enemies it has ever had to contend with are the two ruling principles of the Epicureans and Stoics--Pleasure and Pride" [Howson].
What will this babbler say?--The word, which means "a picker-up of seeds," bird-like, is applied to a gatherer and retailer of scraps of knowledge, a prater; a general term of contempt for any pretended teacher.
a setter forth of strange gods--"demons," but in the Greek (not Jewish) sense of "objects of worship."
because he preached Jesus and the resurrection--Not as if they thought he made these to be two divinities: the strange gods were Jehovah and the Risen Saviour, ordained to judge the world.
22. Then Paul stood ... and said--more graphically, "standing in the midst of Mars' hill, said." This prefatory allusion to the position he occupied shows the writer's wish to bring the situation vividly before us [Baumgarten].
I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious--rather (with most modern interpreters and the ancient Greek ones), "in all respects extremely reverential" or "much given to religious worship," a conciliatory and commendatory introduction, founded on his own observation of the symbols of devotion with which their city was covered, and from which all Greek writers, as well as the apostle, inferred the exemplary religiousness of the Athenians. (The authorized translation would imply that only too much superstition was wrong, and represents the apostle as repelling his hearers in the very first sentence; whereas the whole discourse is studiously courteous).
23. as I passed by and beheld your devotions--rather, "the objects of your devotion," referring, as is plain from the next words, to their works of art consecrated to religion.
I found an altar ... To the--or, "an"
unknown god--erected, probably, to commemorate some divine interposition, which they were unable to ascribe to any known deity. That there were such altars, Greek writers attest; and on this the apostle skilfully fastens at the outset, as the text of his discourse, taking it as evidence of that dimness of religious conception which, in virtue of his better light, he was prepared to dissipate.
Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship--rather, "Whom, therefore, knowing Him not, ye worship," alluding to "The Unknown God."
him declare--announce.
I unto you--This is like none of his previous discourses, save that to the idolaters of Lycaonia ([Ac 14:15-17]). His subject is not, as in the synagogues, the Messiahship of Jesus, but THE Living God, in opposition to the materialistic and pantheistic polytheism of Greece, which subverted all true religion. Nor does he come with speculation on this profound subject--of which they had had enough from others--but an authoritative "announcement" of Him after whom they were groping not giving Him any name, however, nor even naming the Saviour Himself but unfolding the true character of both as they were able to receive it.