Acts 18:24

Ἰουδαῖος δέ τις Ἀπολλὼς ὀνόματι, now a certain Jew named Apollos. The five verses following are a digression to introduce the narrative of the next chapter.

The name Apollos is an abbreviation of Apollonius, which is read in one MS. (D). His influence as a Christian teacher made itself most felt in Corinth. (Cp. 1 Corinthians 1:12; 1 Corinthians 3:5; 1 Corinthians 4:6.)

Αλεξανδρεὺς τῷ γένει, an Alexandrian by birth. On Alexandria as a place where Jews abounded, cf. Acts 6:9. It was in Alexandria and by Jews that the Septuagint Version was made.

ἀνὴρ λόγιος, an eloquent man (Rev. Ver. ‘learned’). The word includes both senses. He had stores of learning, and also could use them to convince others.

κατήντησεν εἰς Ἕφεσον, δυνατὸς ἂν ἐν ταῖς γραφαῖς, came to Ephesus, and he was mighty in the Scriptures. The study of the Old Testament flourished greatly in Alexandria, and Apollos had great power in the exposition and application of these Scriptures. The literary activity and philosophic pursuits of the Greek population of Alexandria were not without their effect on the more conservative Jews, and we find from many sources that the Jewish writings were studied with all the literary exactness which marked the Greek scholarship of the time, and the Jews, conscious of the antiquity of their own records and yet impressed with the philosophic character of their cultured fellow-citizens, bent themselves greatly to find analogies between the Mosaic writings and the teachings of the schools. In study like this Apollos had no doubt been fully trained.

δυνατὸς ἐν is in the N.T. used only by St Luke, see Luke 24:19; Acts 7:22. It is frequent in the LXX., cf. Sir 21:7, γνωστὸς μακρόθεν ὁ δυνατὸς ἐν γλώσσῃ.