Acts 17:5

5. ἀπειθοῦντες omitted before Ἰουδαῖοι with אABE. Not represented in Vulg.

προαγαγεῖν with אAB. Vulg. ‘producere.’

5. ζηλώσαντες δὲ οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι, but the Jews being moved with envy. This must refer to those who still clung to all the ritual and traditional exclusiveness which had grown up around the Mosaic Law. ζῆλος in its worse sense expresses their anger and dislike at seeing large numbers drawn away from their opinions.

τῶν�, certain vile fellows of the rabble. ἀγοραῖος, ‘of the rabble,’ is properly the man who having no calling lounges about the ἀγορά, the market-place, in the hope of picking up a chance living, and who is ready for anything bad or good that may present itself. We have no English word sufficiently dignified to use for such a term in translation. ‘Loafer’ comes nearest, but of course is too colloquial. The word ‘lewd’ (A.V. for πονηρούς) meant in old English ‘people,’ but afterwards came to signify (1) ‘the common people,’ and (2) ‘the ignorant and rude among the people,’ which is the sense intended by the A.V. The word nearest akin to ‘lewd’ is the Germ. Leute = people.

ἐθορύβουν τὴν πόλιν, they set the city in an uproar. The Jews in Thessalonica were clearly numerous and influential or they would never have stirred up such a tumult. To help their case they chose (see Acts 17:7) to raise the cry that the new teachers were enemies of the Roman power.

τῇ οἰκίᾳ Ἰάσονος, the house of Jason. Manifestly the host of Paul and Silas. Beyond what is said of him in the following verses (6–9) we know nothing. The name is found, Romans 16:21, in a list of those whom St Paul speaks of as his ‘kinsmen,’ hut this may be quite a different person. He is most likely to have been a Jew, whose proper name perhaps was Joseph, and Jason, which is Greek, may be only that which he used in his intercourse with Gentiles.

αὐτοὺς προαγαγεῖν εἰς τὸν δῆμον, to bring them forth to the people. So that the excited mob might inflict summary vengeance upon them.