Acts 11:28

μεγάλην after λιμόν with אABD, and so ἤτις to agree with it instead of ὅστις.

Καίσαρος omitted with אABD. Unrepresented in Vulg.

28. εἶς ἐξ αὐτῶν ὀνόματι Ἄγαβος, one of them, named Agabus. He is mentioned again in Acts 21:10, where, after the fashion of some of the prophets of the O.T., he by a significant action, as well as by his words, foretells the imprisonment of St Paul at Jerusalem.

διὰ τοῦ πνεύματος. So too Acts 21:11 the words of Agabus are prefaced by τάδε λέγει τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον.

λιμὸν μεγάλην, great dearth. This noun is usually masculine, but the grammarians notice that, as St Luke makes it here, it is sometimes feminine. The Megarean in Aristoph. Acharn. 743 uses it as feminine.

This famine is mentioned by Josephus (Ant. XX. 2. 5) who tells how Helena, queen of Adiabene, being at Jerusalem, succoured the people by procuring for them corn from Alexandria and a cargo of figs from Cyprus. The date of this severe famine was A.D. 45.

ἐφ' ὅλην τὴν οἰκουμένην, throughout all the world, ἡ οἰκουμένη is the phrase used for the whole Roman empire, as in Luke 2:1, but here perhaps it has a wider signification. Though one region might be specially afflicted by the failure of its crops, all the rest of the Roman empire would be sure to suffer in some degree at the same time, and especially when famines were, as at this time, of frequent recurrence.

ἐπὶ Κλαυδίου, in the days of Claudius. The reign of Claudius (A.D. 41–54) was remarkable for the famines with which various parts of the empire were afflicted. The first, second, fourth, ninth and eleventh years of this emperor’s reign are recorded as years of famine in some district or other. See Suetonius, Claudius, 28; Tacitus, Ann. XII. 43; Josephus, Ant. XX. 2. 5; Dio Cassius, IX. p. 949; Euseb. H. E. II. 8.