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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - Acts 13:14 - 13:14
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Passing through (dielthontes). It is not clear why Paul and Barnabas left Perga so soon nor why they went to Antioch in Pisidia. Ramsay suggests malaria that spurred them on to the hills after the desertion of John Mark. They preached at Perga on the return (Act 14:25) and apparently hurried away now. Farrar thinks that the hot weather had driven the population to the hills. At any rate it is not difficult to imagine the perils of this climb over the rough mountain way from Perga to Pisidian Antioch to which Paul apparently refers in 2Co 11:26.
Sat down (ekathisan). Ingressive aorist active indicative, took their seats as visiting Jews, possibly in the seats of the rabbis (J. Lightfoot). Whether they expected to be called on or not, they were given the opportunity as prominent visitors. The Pisidian Antioch was really in Phrygia, but towards Pisidia to distinguish it from Antioch on the Maeander (Ramsay, Church in the Roman Empire, p. 25). It was a colony like Philippi and so a free city. If Paul is referring to South Galatia and not North Galatia in Gal 4:13 when he says that his preaching in Galatia at first was due to illness, then it was probably here at Pisidian Antioch. What it was we have no means of knowing, though it was a temptation in his flesh to them so severe that they were willing to pluck out their eyes for him (Gal 4:14.). Opthalmia, malaria, epilepsy have all been suggested as this stake in the flesh (2Co 12:7). But Paul was able to preach with power whatever his actual physical condition was.