For before certain men came from James
This phrase sets the stage for understanding the social and religious dynamics at play. "Certain men" likely refers to Jewish Christians who were closely associated with James, the leader of the Jerusalem church. Historically, James was known for his adherence to Jewish law, which suggests that these men might have been advocating for the necessity of following Jewish customs. The Greek word for "came" (ἦλθον) implies a significant arrival, indicating that their presence carried weight and authority. This context highlights the tension between Jewish traditions and the emerging Christian faith, which was increasingly inclusive of Gentiles.

he used to eat with the Gentiles
The act of eating with Gentiles was a profound statement in the early church. In Jewish culture, table fellowship was a sign of acceptance and unity. The Greek word for "eat" (συνεσθίω) suggests a habitual action, indicating that Peter regularly shared meals with Gentile believers. This practice was revolutionary, breaking down the traditional Jewish barriers that separated Jews from Gentiles. It reflects the transformative power of the Gospel, which unites all believers in Christ regardless of ethnic or cultural backgrounds.

But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself
The arrival of the men from James caused Peter to change his behavior. The Greek word for "draw back" (ὑποστέλλω) conveys a sense of retreat or withdrawal, while "separate" (ἀφορίζω) implies a deliberate act of creating division. This shift highlights the pressure Peter felt to conform to the expectations of the Jewish Christians, even at the cost of compromising the Gospel's message of unity. It serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of succumbing to peer pressure and the importance of standing firm in one's convictions.

for fear of those in the circumcision group
Fear is a powerful motivator, and in this context, it reveals Peter's internal struggle. The "circumcision group" refers to Jewish Christians who believed that adherence to Jewish law, including circumcision, was necessary for salvation. The Greek word for "fear" (φόβος) indicates a deep-seated anxiety about the opinions and judgments of others. This fear led Peter to act contrary to the truth of the Gospel, which teaches that salvation is by grace through faith, not by works of the law. This phrase challenges believers to examine their own fears and to prioritize God's approval over human approval.

(12) Certain came from James.--The expression used leaves it an open question whether the persons intended brought, or claimed to bring, any sort of official authorisation from St. James (comp. Acts 15:24), or whether they merely belonged to the Church of Jerusalem, in which, if St. James was not actually bishop, he at least exercised a sort of presidential jurisdiction.

He did eat with the Gentiles.--By eating with Gentiles a Jew contracted Levitical defilement. St. Peter had been accused of this before, on account of his intercourse with Cornelius. (Comp. Acts 11:3.) He had not, however, stability and firmness enough to treat the question of principle as settled for him then once for all, and he yielded to a repetition of the old remonstrances. Our Lord Himself had braved Jewish opinion on this point. (Comp. Luke 15:2.)

When they were come.--The reading of the oldest MSS. here is "when he came," of which it seems impossible to make any satisfactory sense. It may have been a slip of the pen, either in the original or in some very early copy. Other instances of mistakes in the oldest MSS. would be--Mark 4:21, "under a candlestick," instead of "on a candlestick;" John 1:15, "he who said," for "he of whom I said;" and a Greek form in Philippians 2:1. . . .

Verse 12. - The Judaism of the earliest Pentecostal Church not rabbinical. Any one who will be at the pains of reviewing the contents of the four Gospels with an eye to this particular subject, cannot fail to be struck by the frequency with which Christ in his own conduct placed himself in even the sharpest antagonism to the "traditions of the eiders," and encouraged his disciples in likewise setting them at nought. And this he did in cases in which the contrast of his behaviour to the abject submission to those traditions paraded by the Pharisees must have been most striking, and have jarred, no doubt, very often even painfully, upon the ill-instructed religious sensibilities of those, who had grown up in the belief that to observe the traditions was both seemly and pious and to neglect them unseemly and schismatical. For example, in daily life, neither he nor his disciples would "baptize" themselves when coming home from the market, nor even apply lustral water to their hands before taking a meal, though there before their eyes stood tire vessels filled with water which had been provided for the guests and which the other guests were punctual in using. It was not without significance that in his first miracle he withdrew the water which had been set apart for such lustrations from one use of it which he would pronounce to be utterly frivolous and vain, to apply it to one which should really be serviceable and beneficent. Again, many were the restrictions which the traditions imposed upon men's actions on the sabbath - restrictions which not only were additional to those enjoined by the Law, but also in many cases contravened the calls of mercy and benevolence. Such restrictions Christ very frequently, and in the most public and pointed manner, so as to directly challenge attention to what he did, broke through, and taught his disciples to disregard; the Pharisees being repeatedly so enraged at these transgressions of the traditions as to endeavour in consequence to take his life. The fastings enjoined by the traditions, he and his disciples likewise offended the Pharisees by taking no account cf. The traditions of especially one popular school of teaching allowed so great a facility of divorce as served to disguise a frightful excess of licentiousness, in which many of the Pharisees were themselves implicated; in opposition to which Christ was wont publicly to declare that 'connections formed after divorces not justified by adultery were themselves adulterous. Continually was the Lord warning his followers against the leaven of Pharisaism, to wit, its ostentation in religious observances; its laying so much stress upon the outward act, in neglect of the inward motive and the posture of the spirit; its draining away the forces of moral earnestness from the prosecution of justice, mercy, and truth, to squander them upon scrupulous and vigilant devotion to the veriest trifles of formalism; the consequent hollowness and hypocrisy of the religious character of its votaries; their love of money; their eagerness for social distinction; their cruelty to the poor amid all their ostentatious almsgiving; their hardheartedness to the fallen; their intense, devilish hatred of real piety. All the four Gospels abound in indications of that antipathy to Pharisaism and traditionalism which Christ both entertained himself and was careful to instil into the minds of his disciples. It cannot, therefore, be questioned that the disciples who formed the first nucleus of the Christian community, especially the twelve and the brethren of the Lord, were animated by similar sentiments of anti-Pharisaism; and so also the Pentecostal Church at Jerusalem as moulded under their influence. The Law of Moses, no doubt, they continued to obey, as their Master had done - the Law of Moses, however, as construed in the more humane and spiritual sense put upon it by the Sermon on the Mount, and not as stiffened and hardened into intolerable cruelty by the rabbinism which the Pharisees insisted upon. Such, we may feel certain, had been the attitude of St. Peter's mind in reference to the Law when, years before at Joppa, he had received the summons to go and visit Cornelius at Caesarea. It was with constraint put upon his own hitherto cherished tastes that he submitted to the call; and when he entered the Gentile's house, the fibre of Israelitism in his soul is seen quivering, shrinking back from the step which he was compelled to take. "Ye yourselves know," he said to the company of uncircumcised men among whom he found himself, "that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to join himself or to come unto one of another nation; and yet unto me hath God showed that I should not call any man common or unclean." It was painful to him as an Israelite and a Mosaist; but God's declared will was leaving him no alternative. Now, whence had arisen those feelings of repulsion? Partly it was, no doubt, a kind of caste sentiment. It had been then more than two thousand years a traditional consciousness with the Hebrew race that their circumcision lifted them to a higher level than the rest of mankind stood upon; and the persuasion inspired them with a disdain of uncircumcised nations, which with the most had little or no admixture of really religious feeling, being felt by the idolatrous Ephraimites as well as by the less unfaithful children of Judah. With the more pious members of the nation, this repulsion from Gentiles was partly the outcome of their sense of the deep degradation, religious and moral, in which heathen nations were sunk, steeped as they were in idolatry; but their sense of this was greatly intensified by the moral effect of the separation from other nations enforced by the ceremonial law. This was effected partly by the distinction between clean and unclean animals, which, recognized in an elementary degree as early as the time of Noah, was made in the Levitical legislation a matter of very minutely definite prescription (Leviticus 11.); and partly by the prohibition of eating either certain kinds of fat (Leviticus 3:17) or blood: to partake either of the flesh of an unclean animal, or of suet or blood, was emphatically declared by the Law, and by the long-inherited tradition of the nation had grown to be instinctively felt to be, "defilement" and "abomination." There is no ground for supposing that St. Peter's shrinking back from Gentiles as common or unclean was caused by rabbinism. Rabbin-ism, no doubt, added much to the bitterness of the repulsion with these who served the traditions; but even where there was no bondage owned to the dicta of the elders, repulsion from the contact of a Gentile was a powerful sentiment, having its roots deep in the instinctive sentiments of the Hebrew race and in the feelings instilled by the peremptory enactments of the Divine Law. Now, however, in Cornelius's house, St. Peter does not allow his spirit to be dominated by sentiments such as these. God and Christ his Master were making it manifest, as in other ways, so especially by the astonishing illapse of the Holy Spirit into these believing hearers of the gospel message, that they were no longer unclean, and therefore he cannot possibly any longer treat them as unclean. He tarried with them certain days, and, according to the charge immediately after preferred against him and not denied, ate with them. That he partook of the same food as they, whether of a kind forbidden by the Mosaic Law or not, is not stated and is no necessary inference drawn from the circumstances. He would not, we may well believe, scruple now to recline at the same table with them; but it may be readily imagined that for a guest so highly revered, of whose Jewish sensibilities respecting food they could not be unaware, even if he or the six Jewish brethren who accompanied him from Joppa did not make a point of apprising them, the wealthy centurion and his family would be only too anxious to provide such food as both he and his fellow-visitors would find acceptable. Thus St. Peter might have "eaten bread" with the Gentiles, neither, on the one hand, himself breaking the Levitical Law by partaking of food which was forbidden to him as a child of the legal covenant, nor, on the other, declining to recognize the full acceptableness before God and the equal brotherhood in Christ of believers who were still in their uncircumcision. The caste feeling of proud disdain of uncircumcised men as men of an inferior grade, and the dread of ceremonial defilement from contact with those who were levitically unclean, dared no longer assert themselves, could, indeed, no longer be permitted to lodge in his bosom, in the face of the clear proof which had been afforded that the Almighty had in Christ adopted them as his own children equally with himself. Thus it appears that when at Antioch, at the time here referred to by St. Paul, Cephas was seen partaking of social meals in company with the Gentile converts, he was only acting in the same way as he had acted at Caesarea ten years before.

Parallel Commentaries ...

For
γὰρ (gar)
Conjunction
Strong's 1063: For. A primary particle; properly, assigning a reason.

before
πρὸ (pro)
Preposition
Strong's 4253: A primary preposition; 'fore', i.e. In front of, prior to.

certain men
τινας (tinas)
Interrogative / Indefinite Pronoun - Accusative Masculine Plural
Strong's 5100: Any one, some one, a certain one or thing. An enclitic indefinite pronoun; some or any person or object.

came
ἐλθεῖν (elthein)
Verb - Aorist Infinitive Active
Strong's 2064: To come, go.

from
ἀπὸ (apo)
Preposition
Strong's 575: From, away from. A primary particle; 'off, ' i.e. Away, in various senses.

James,
Ἰακώβου (Iakōbou)
Noun - Genitive Masculine Singular
Strong's 2385: The same as Iakob Graecized; Jacobus, the name of three Israelites.

he used to eat
συνήσθιεν (synēsthien)
Verb - Imperfect Indicative Active - 3rd Person Singular
Strong's 4906: To eat with. From sun and esthio; to take food in company with.

with
μετὰ (meta)
Preposition
Strong's 3326: (a) gen: with, in company with, (b) acc: (1) behind, beyond, after, of place, (2) after, of time, with nouns, neut. of adjectives.

the
τῶν (tōn)
Article - Genitive Neuter Plural
Strong's 3588: The, the definite article. Including the feminine he, and the neuter to in all their inflections; the definite article; the.

Gentiles.
ἐθνῶν (ethnōn)
Noun - Genitive Neuter Plural
Strong's 1484: Probably from etho; a race, i.e. A tribe; specially, a foreign one.

But
δὲ (de)
Conjunction
Strong's 1161: A primary particle; but, and, etc.

when
ὅτε (hote)
Adverb
Strong's 3753: When, at which time. From hos and te; at which too, i.e. When.

they arrived,
ἦλθον (ēlthon)
Verb - Aorist Indicative Active - 3rd Person Plural
Strong's 2064: To come, go.

he began to draw back
ὑπέστελλεν (hypestellen)
Verb - Imperfect Indicative Active - 3rd Person Singular
Strong's 5288: From hupo and stello; to withhold under, i.e. to cower or shrink, to conceal.

and
καὶ (kai)
Conjunction
Strong's 2532: And, even, also, namely.

separate
ἀφώριζεν (aphōrizen)
Verb - Imperfect Indicative Active - 3rd Person Singular
Strong's 873: To rail off, separate, place apart. From apo and horizo; to set off by boundary, i.e. limit, exclude, appoint, etc.

himself,
ἑαυτόν (heauton)
Reflexive Pronoun - Accusative Masculine 3rd Person Singular
Strong's 1438: Himself, herself, itself.

for fear of
φοβούμενος (phoboumenos)
Verb - Present Participle Middle or Passive - Nominative Masculine Singular
Strong's 5399: From phobos; to frighten, i.e. to be alarmed; by analogy, to be in awe of, i.e. Revere.

those
τοὺς (tous)
Article - Accusative Masculine Plural
Strong's 3588: The, the definite article. Including the feminine he, and the neuter to in all their inflections; the definite article; the.

in
ἐκ (ek)
Preposition
Strong's 1537: From out, out from among, from, suggesting from the interior outwards. A primary preposition denoting origin, from, out.

[the] circumcision [ group ].
περιτομῆς (peritomēs)
Noun - Genitive Feminine Singular
Strong's 4061: Circumcision. From peritemno; circumcision.


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NT Letters: Galatians 2:12 For before some people came from James (Gal. Ga)