Acts 28:17

αὐτόν for τὸν Παῦλον with אABI. Vulg. has not the proper name.

17. μετὰ ἡμέρας τρεῖς, after three days. At first the Apostle would naturally desire to learn all he could of the Christian congregations at Rome from those who had been the first to welcome him on his approach to that city. But for this, three days sufficed. Then he set about explaining his position to those of his fellow-countrymen, not Christians, who were of most importance in Rome. For to them would most probably be forwarded an account of the charges to be laid against the Apostle, and of the evidence by which they were to be supported.

συγκαλέσασθαι αὐτὸν τοὺς ὄντας τῶν Ἰουδαίων πρώτους, that he called together the chief of the Jews. Keeping still to the rule that the Gospel should be offered first to the Jews, even here in Rome, where he had good reason to think that his message would not be received. The decree by which in the reign of Claudius all the Jews had been banished from Rome (Acts 18:2) was evidently no longer in force. For clearly there was an important body of them resident in the city.

ἄνδρες�. See note on Acts 1:16.

οὐδὲν ἐναντίον ποιήσας τῷ λαῷ κ. τ. λ., though I had done nothing against the people or the customs of our forefathers. For everywhere he had shewn himself desirous that his own people should hear the message of the Gospel first, and for Jews he had never forbidden circumcision, only insisting that Gentile converts should not be forced to submit to the Jewish law before they were received into the Christian Church.

δέσμιος ἐξ Ἱεροσολύμων παρεδόθην, I was delivered a prisoner from Jerusalem. The Apostle describes the result, rather than the steps by which it was brought about. The chief captain had rescued him from the violence of the Jewish mob, and he had never since been out of the care of the Roman authorities. Yet but for the Jews he never would have been a Roman prisoner, and when the Sadducees in Jerusalem found that he was not to be given up to them, they made themselves his accusers before Felix and Festus.