Acts 24:18

Whereupon certain Jews from Asia found me purified in the temple, neither with multitude, nor with tumult.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(18) Whereupon certain Jews from Asia . . .—Literally, in which things, or wherein. Many of the better MSS. give the relative pronoun in the feminine, as agreeing with “offerings,” and indicating that he was, as it were, occupied with them at the very time when the Jews from Asia found him, not profaning the Temple, but purified with all the completeness which the Nazarite vow required.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

24:10-21 Paul gives a just account of himself, which clears him from crime, and likewise shows the true reason of the violence against him. Let us never be driven from any good way by its having an ill name. It is very comfortable, in worshipping God, to look to him as the God of our fathers, and to set up no other rule of faith or practice but the Scriptures. This shows there will be a resurrection to a final judgment. Prophets and their doctrines were to be tried by their fruits. Paul's aim was to have a conscience void of offence. His care and endeavour was to abstain from many things, and to abound in the exercises of religion at all times; both towards God. and towards man. If blamed for being more earnest in the things of God than our neighbours, what is our reply? Do we shrink from the accusation? How many in the world would rather be accused of any weakness, nay, even of wickedness, than of an earnest, fervent feeling of love to the Lord Jesus Christ, and of devotedness to his service! Can such think that He will confess them when he comes in his glory, and before the angels of God? If there is any sight pleasing to the God of our salvation, and a sight at which the angels rejoice, it is, to behold a devoted follower of the Lord, here upon earth, acknowledging that he is guilty, if it be a crime, of loving the Lord who died for him, with all his heart, and soul, and mind, and strength. And that he will not in silence see God's word despised, or hear his name profaned; he will rather risk the ridicule and the hatred of the world, than one frown from that gracious Being whose love is better than life.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Certain Jews from Asia - Acts 21:27.

Found me purified in the temple - Acts 21:26-27. They found me engaged in the sacred service of completing the observance of my vow.

Neither with multitude - Not having introduced a multitude with me - in a quiet and peaceful manner.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

18-21. found me purified in the temple—not polluting it, therefore, by my own presence, and neither gathering a crowd nor raising a stir: If then these Asiatic Jews have any charge to bring against me in justification of their arrest of me, why are they not here to substantiate it?

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Whereupon; upon my bringing up those alms now mentioned; whilst I was employed for the good of my countrymen who now accuse me.

Purified in the temple; performing all things which the law did require of Nazarites, or those who had made a vow, and in which their legal purification did consist.

Neither with multitude, nor with tumult; the multitude was of their own gathering together; and the tumult, if any, was made by themselves. It is no new thing that Christians should be charged with those mischiefs which their enemies themselves did to make them odious.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Whereupon,.... Or "among which"; while the apostle was busy about the offerings of the Nazarites:

certain Jews from Asia found me purified in the temple; and therefore could not be said to profane it; this he observes in answer to the charge of his attempting to profane it, and acquaints the governor how that was; as that having joined himself to four men that had a vow upon them, and being in the temple purifying himself with them, certain Jews that came from Ephesus, in Asia, who knew him there, and had a pique against him, found him here; not profaning the temple, as they pretended, but acting according to the worship and service of it; and that,

neither with a multitude; for there were but four men with him;

nor with tumult; making any noise and riot, or stirring up persons to sedition and rebellion.

Geneva Study Bible

{k} Whereupon certain Jews from {l} Asia found me purified in the temple, neither with multitude, nor with tumult.

(k) And while I was occupied with those things.

(l) By this it is evident that these from Asia were Paul's enemies, and the ones that stirred up the people against him.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

Acts 24:18-19. Ἐν οἷς, during which (applies to the προσφοράς), during which sacrificial occupations. “Graeci, licet alius generis nomen praecesserit, saepe neutro plurali pronominis utuntur, generalem vocabuli notionem respicientes,” Kühner, ad Xen. Anab. vii. 7. 14. Comp. Matthiae, p. 987; Poppo, ad Thuc. iii. 97. 3.

ἡγνισμένον] purified, as a Nazarite (see Acts 21:27), thus, in an unobjectionable and holy condition, without multitude and without tumult.

A point is not, with Griesbach, Scholz, and de Wette, to be placed after θορύβου, because otherwise τινὲς δὲ κ.τ.λ. would be an imperfect sentence, which the simplicity of the structure of the discourse (it is otherwise in Acts 24:5 f.) does not justify our assuming. Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Bornemann have correctly put only a comma. It is accordingly to be explained in such a way, that Paul with εὗρον … τινὲς δὲ κ.τ.λ. glances back to what was said in Acts 24:5 f., which had sounded as if the Sanhedrists had found him. On the other hand, τινὲς δέ forms the contrast, introducing the actual position of the matter, in which δέ withal refers to suppressam aliquam partem sententiae (Hermann, ad Philoctet. 16), thus: Thereupon there found me—not these, as they asserted, Acts 24:5,—but doubtless certain Asiatic Jews. Comp. Bornemann, Schol. in Luk. p. 184, and in Rosenmüller, Repert. II. p. 278.

ἔδει] The sense of the praeterite, and that without ἄν, is here essential; for the Asiatics must have appeared, like the Sanhedrists, before the procurator, if they, etc. That this did not happen, is a fact of the past. Comp. Buttmann, neut. Gr. p. 187 [E. T. 216 f.].

εἴ τι ἔχοιεν, in so far as they should have ought (subjective possibility). On εἰ with the optative, and in the following sentence the indicative, see Bernhardy, p. 386 f.; Winer, p. 276 [E. T. 367].

Expositor's Greek Testament

Acts 24:18. ἐν οἷς, see critical note. If we read ἐν αἷς = “amidst which,” R.V., “in presenting which,” margin, with reference to προσφοράς, including not only the offerings in connection with the Apostle’s association of himself with the poor men in the Nazirite vow, but also offerings such as those referred to in Acts 24:17. ἐν οἷς = inter quæ (Winer-Schmiedel, pp. 193, 228), i.e., in reference to these matters generally, cf. Acts 26:12.—εὗρον, cf. Acts 24:5 : “they found me,” indeed, as they have said, but οὐ μετὰ ὄχλου κ.τ.λ.; a direct answer to the charge of profaning the Temple: he had gone there for worship and sacrifice, “then how did I profane it?” Chrys., Hom., .—ἡγνισμένον: the expression is generally taken to refer to the offerings involved in the association with the vow, Acts 21:26, but it may also include other acts of worship and purification in the Temple.—τινὲς: in A.V. the word is simply referred to εὗρον and there is no difficulty; but if we insert δέ after it (see critical note). R.V. renders “but there were certain Jews from Asia,” etc. The sentence breaks off, and the speaker makes no direct reference to Acts 21:27, but implies that these Asiatic Jews should have been present to accuse him if they had any accusation to make—their absence was in the prisoner’s favour; “the passage as it stands (i.e., with this break) is instinct with life, and seems to exhibit the abruptness so characteristic of the Pauline Epistles,” cf. Acts 26:9, see Page’s note in loco. Others take δέ though less forcibly as more strictly in opposition to the preceding words, meaning that his accusers had not found him as they alleged, and as Tertullus alleged, Acts 24:5, but that certain Jews of Asia had found him. Hackett retains δέ, and sees in the words a retort of the charge of riot upon the true authors of it: “but certain Jews from Asia”—it is they who excited a tumult, not I; the verb could be omitted, a true picture of the Apostle’s earnestness, because so readily suggested from θορύβου, but this interpretation seems hardly borne out by the context.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

18. Whereupon] According to the best MSS. the relative here, by its gender, must be referred to the “offerings” which have just been named. Read (with Rev. Ver.) Amidst which, i.e. engaged in offering which oblations.

certain Jews from Asia] These words should, according to all authorities, be placed in the latter clause of the verse. Read “Amidst which they found, &c.”

found me purified] i.e. abstaining from all things forbidden by the law of the Nazarites. See Numbers 6:3-8.

neither with multitude, &c.] The gathering of a crowd and raising a disturbance would have been the first steps towards some act of profanation. But even this he had not done. The original requires that we should continue the sentence, “but there were certain Jews from Asia,” as in the Rev. Ver. It was from the Asiatic Jews, perhaps those from Ephesus, that the uproar had at first been originated. It would appear also that part of Tertullus’ argument was derived from their information. Of these Asiatic Jews St Paul was now about to speak, but he checks himself, and does not say any word against them, only that they ought to have been here to explain the offence for which he had been assailed.

Bengel's Gnomen

Acts 24:18. Ἐν, οἷς, in which) viz. occupations, aims.—ὄχλου—θορύβου) Ὄχλος, a crowd of men; θόρυβος, a crowd or confusion of things: ὄχλος is something more fortuitous; θόρυβος, a crowd, denotes something more violent, and attempted with more deliberate purpose.—τίνες δὲ) Δὲ is genuine, being established by very many MSS.[139] Understand ΕἾΔΟΝ, saw me.

[139] AB (according to Lachm.) CEe Vulg. Meraph. Theb. later Syr. have the δέ; but Elzevir Rec. Text omits it, with B (Judging from the silence of collators), according to Tisch.—E. and T.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 18. - Amidst which for whereupon, A.V. and T.R.; they found me purified in the temple with no crowd, nor yet with tumult: but there were certain Jews from Asia for certain Jews from Asia found me purified in the temple, neither with multitude, nor with tumult, A.V. and T.R. Amidst which (ἐν αϊς, R.T.) refers to the alms and offerings The T.R. has ἐν οϊς, "under which circumstances," "at the transaction of which deeds," or, briefer, "whereupon," A.V. But there were. Most manuscripts followed by the R.T., read τινὲς δὲ ἀπὸ τῆς Ασίας, thus giving a broken unfinished sentence instead of the plain and complete one of the T.R., which agrees, moreover, exactly with Acts 21:27. Acts 24:18

Vincent's Word Studies

Whereupon (ἐν οἷς)

More correctly, in which (occupation); while so engaged. The best texts, however, read ἐν αἷς, in which, the pronoun agreeing in gender with offerings. The sense, according to this, is, as Rev., margin, in presenting which (offerings).