Acts 21:30

And all the city was moved, and the people ran together: and they took Paul, and drew him out of the temple: and forthwith the doors were shut. And all the city was moved, and the people ran together: and they took Paul, and drew him out of the temple: and forthwith the doors were shut - PROBABLY THAT THE MURDER THEY MEANT TO PERPETRATE MIGHT NOT POLLUTE THAT HOLY PLACE....

− 30._And the city was moved. _We see in this place the vanity of the common people, which count Paul a condemned man before ever they hear him. Whereas the city is moved about godliness, − (490) “it is no marvel; but this is a point of perverse zeal and mad rashness, in that they set themselves against Paul before they know his matter. For in this corruption of nature frowardness is joined with foolishness, so that those will readily, of their own accord, make haste to maintain an evil cause who can hardly be moved with many exhortations to do well. This is a hard case, that the whole world should be armed against us at a sudden, through the persuasion of a few; but seeing it pleaseth the Lord it should be so, let every one of us prepare himself by this, and such like examples, to suffer all manner [of] assaults, and to bear and abide all brunts. “ Quod tumultuatur civi

27-40 In the temple, where Paul should have been protected as in a place of safety, he was violently set upon. They falsely charged him with ill doctrine and ill practice against the Mosaic ceremonies. It is no new thing for those who mean honestly and act regularly, to have things laid to their charge which they know not and never thought of. It is common for the wise and good to have that charged against them by malicious people, with which they thought to have obliged them. God often makes those a protection to his people, who have no affection to them, but only have compassion for sufferers, and regard to the public peace. And here see what false, mistaken notions of good people and good ministers, many run away with. But God seasonably interposes for the safety of his servants, from wicked and unreasonable men; and gives them opportunities to speak for themselves, to plead for the R...

Verse 30. _THEY TOOK PAUL_] They tumultuously seized on him; _and_ _drew him out of the temple_, out of the court of the Israelites, where he was worshipping: _and - the doors were shut_; the doors of the court of the Gentiles, probably to prevent Paul from getting any succour from his friends in the city; for their whole proceedings show that they purposed to murder him: they brought him out of the court of the Israelites, _that_ court being peculiarly holy, that it might not be defiled by his blood; and they shut the court of the Gentiles, that they might have the opportunity unmolested of killing him in that place; for the court of the Gentiles was reckoned to be less holy than than that of the Israelites....

THE CITY WAS MOVED - Was agitated; was thrown into commotion. DREW HIM OUT OF THE TEMPLE - Under the pretence that he had defiled it. The evident design was to put him to death, Acts 21:31. THE DOORS WERE SHUT - The doors leading into the courts of the temple....

EXPOSITION ACTS 21:1 _When it came to pass float we were parted from them, and had set sail _for _it came to pass, that after we were gotten from them, and had launched, _A.V.; _Cos _for _Coos_, A.V. and T.R.; _next day _for _day following, _A.V. PARTED FROM THEM (ἀποσπασθέντας)_. _"Non sine desiderio magno" (Bengel). "He shows the violence of the parting by saying, ' Having torn ourselves away '" (Chrysostom). The word is properly applied to those who have been unwillingly torn away from their friends (Schleusner and Kuinoel); "denotes the painful separation wrung from them by necessity" (Meyer) In Acts 20:30 it was used in the active voice of false teachers "drawing away" the disciples, _i.e. _Christians

AND ALL THE CITY WAS MOVED, AND THE PEOPLE RAN TOGETHER,.... The outcry in the temple reached the ears of some that were without, and these alarmed others; so that the report of a disturbance in the temple soon went through the whole city; and brought people out of their houses, who ran together in great numbers, to see what was the matter: AND THEY TOOK PAUL AND DREW HIM OUT OF THE TEMPLE; as unworthy to be in that holy place; and that it might not be defiled with his blood; for their intention was nothing less than to take away his life: AND FORTHWITH THE DOORS WERE SHUT; not of themselves, as if there was something miraculous in it, as some have thought, but by the door keepers, the Levites; and which might be done, partly to prevent Paul's returning into it for refuge at the horns of the altar, and partly to keep out the Gentiles from coming in, they were alarmed with....

DREW See (Acts 14:19); (Acts 16:19)....

CHAPTER 21 _ 1. The journey from Miletus to Tyre and Ptolemais (Acts 21:1)._ 2. In Caesarea (Acts 21:8). 3. The Apostle's Arrival in Jerusalem and his visit to the Temple (Acts 21:15). 4. The Uproar in the Temple. Paul taken prisoner (Acts 21:27). Coos, Rhodes and Patara are mentioned. Then they sailed over to Phenicia and landed in Tyre. Here they found disciples. And the Holy Spirit through these disciples warned the Apostle at once that he should not go to Jerusalem. This, indeed, was very solemn. If these disciples had spoken of themselves, if it said that they were in anxiety over Paul's journey to that

OUTBURST OF JEWISH FURY AGAINST PAUL IN THE TEMPLE: HIS ARREST. A week later Paul is in the Temple to discharge his vow; whether it was discharged or not is uncertain. The sight of him there infuriates certain Jews from Asia (Ephesus was the metropolis of that province), who at once begin shouting, as they lay their hands on Paul, that he teaches everywhere a doctrine subversive of all that the Jew held dear; and that he had violated the Temple by taking a Gentile into the inner court. An inscription on the railings (Revelation 11:2 *, _cf_. Ephesians 2:14 *) denounced the penalty of death against any Gentile found there. It was a suspicion merely; Trophimus (Acts 20:4) had been seen with Paul on the streets but not