19:21-31 Persons who came from afar to pay their devotions at the temple of Ephesus, bought little silver shrines, or models of the temple, to carry home with them. See how craftsmen make advantage to themselves of people's superstition, and serve their worldly ends by it. Men are jealous for that by which they get their wealth; and many set themselves against the gospel of Christ, because it calls men from all unlawful crafts, however much wealth is to be gotten by them. There are persons who will stickle for what is most grossly absurd, unreasonable, and false; as this, that those are gods which are made with hands, if it has but worldly interest on its side. The whole city was full of confusion, the common and natural effect of zeal for false religion. Zeal for the honour of Christ, and love to the brethren, encourage zealous believers to venture into danger. Friends will often be raised up among those who are strangers to true religion, but have observed the honest and consistent behaviour of Christians.

Verse 24. - Of for for, A.V.; little business for small gain, A.V. Shrines of Diana, or Artemis. They were silver models of the famous temple of Diana at Ephesus, and were carried as charms on journeys and placed in people's houses to ensure to them the protection of the goddess (Meyer). These gold or silver shrines contained within them an image of Artemis (Lewin, vol. 1. p. 408), as similar ones, which have been found made of terracotta, do of Cybele (Lewin, p. 414). Repeated mention is made in Diodorus Siculus, Ammianus Marcellinus, and elsewhere, of gold or silver shrines (ναόι), which were offered to different gods as propitiatory gifts, or carried about by the owners as charms, Business; ἐργασία, here and ver. 25 (see Acts 16:16, note).

For a certain man, named Demetrius, a silversmith,.... Who worked in silver, not in coining silver money, but in making silver vessels, in melting silver, and casting it into moulds, and forming it into different shapes; and particularly,

which made silver shrines for Diana; who Diana was; see Gill on Acts 19:27, these were not coins or medals of silver, struck by Demetrius, with the figure of the temple of Diana on them, nor images of Diana, as the Ethiopic version reads; but they were chaplets, or little temples made of silver, in imitation of the temple of Diana at Ephesus, with her image included in it; the words may be rendered, "silver temples": in some manuscripts it is added, "like little chests": which being sold to the people,

brought no small gain to the craftsmen: who were of the same trade with him; masters of the same business, who employed others under them, as appears by what follows.

24-26. silver shrines for—"of"

Diana—small models of the Ephesian temple and of the shrine or chapel of the goddess, or of the shrine and statue alone, which were purchased by visitors as memorials of what they had seen, and were carried about and deposited in houses as a charm. (The models of the chapel of our Lady of Loretto, and such like, which the Church of Rome systematically encourages, are such a palpable imitation of this heathen practice that it is no wonder it should be regarded by impartial judges as Christianity paganized).

gain to the craftsmen—the master-artificers.

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