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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - Acts 21:28 - 21:28
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Help (boētheite). Present active imperative of boētheō, to run (theō) at a cry (boē), as if an outrage had been committed like murder or assault.
All men everywhere (panta pantachēi). Alliterative. Pantachēi is a variation in MSS., often pantachou, and here only in the N.T. The charges against Paul remind one of those against Stephen (Act 6:13) in which Paul had participated according to his confession (Act 22:20). Like the charges against Stephen and Jesus before him truth and falsehood are mixed. Paul had said that being a Jew would not save a man. He had taught the law of Moses was not binding on Gentiles. He did hold, like Jesus and Stephen, that the temple was not the only place to worship God. But Paul gloried himself in being a Jew, considered the Mosaic law righteous for Jews, and was honouring the temple at this very moment.
And moreover also he brought Greeks also into the temple (eti te kai Hellēnas eisēgagen eis to hieron). Note the three particles (eti te kai), and (te) still more (eti) also or even (kai). Worse than his teaching (didaskōn) is his dreadful deed: he actually brought (eisēgagen, second aorist active indicative of eisagō). This he had a right to do if they only went into the court of the Gentiles. But these Jews mean to imply that Paul had brought Greeks beyond this court into the court of Israel. An inscription was found by Clermont-Ganneau in Greek built into the walls of a mosque on the Via Dolorosa that was on the wall dividing the court of Israel from the court of the Gentiles. Death was the penalty to any Gentile who crossed over into the Court of Israel (The Athenaeum, July, 1871).
Hath defiled this holy place (keKoinōken ton hagion topon touton). Present perfect active of Koinoō, to make common (See note on Act 10:14). Note vivid change of tense, the defilement lasts (state of completion). All this is the substance of the call of these shrewd conspirators from Ephesus, Jews (not Jewish Christians, not even Judaizers) who hated him for his work there and who probably “spoke evil of the Way before the multitude” there so that Paul had to separate the disciples from the synagogue and go to the School of Tyrannus (Act 19:9.). These enemies of Paul had now raised the cry of “fire” and vanish from the scene completely (Act 24:19). This charge was absolutely false as we shall see, made out of inferences of hate and suspicion.