Acts 21:37

μέλλων τε εἰσάγεσθαι, and when he was about to be brought. This must have been when a place on the stairs had been reached where Paul was safe out of reach of the mob, and needed no longer to be borne up by the soldiers.

εἰ ἔξεστίν μοι είπεῖν τι πρός σε; may I speak to thee? Literally ‘may I say something to thee?’ On εἰ as a mere mark of interrogation, cf. on Acts 1:6.

Ἐλληνιστὶ γινώσκεις; dost thou know Greek? The χιλίαρχος had evidently come down with a preconceived notion who the offender was about whom the disturbance had arisen. And from some source or other he appears to have known that the Egyptian, whom he supposed St Paul to be, could not speak Greek.