Acts 19:29

And the whole city was filled with confusion The oldest texts omit "whole" and add an article before "confusion." It is the special tumult which is meant. The city was not so much interested in the gains of the silversmiths, but equally with them in the glory and magnificence which Ephesus had, as the seat of the worship of Artemis. So that the noise, that began in the meeting which Demetrius had gathered, was taken up by the whole Ephesian population, and they needed a wider space for the crowds now pouring together from every side. The word for "confusion" intimates that the throng gathered in great excitement.

and having caught Gaius and Aristarchus, men of Macedonia, Paul's companions in travel These men must have been seized by the crowd because they were not able to find Paul. We may see therefore that between the meeting of the craftsmen and the greater assembly in the theatre, there had been search made by the mob that they might lay hands on the Apostle. It is interesting to note that the companionship of these Macedonian converts gives evidence of the permanent effect of the labours of St Paul in that country on his previous journey. The brevity of the record in the Acts makes it important to observe such indications wherever they are given undesignedly. This Gaius is not identical with any other of the same name met with in Acts 20:4, and Rom 16:23, 1 Corinthians 1:15. Of Aristarchus we hear again in Acts 20:4 and Acts 27:2, for he accompanied St Paul in his voyage to Rome and is mentioned in the Epistles written at that time (Colossians 4:10; Philemon 1:24). As natives of Colossæ, and most probably Philemon himself, came to Ephesus and heard the preaching of St Paul there, Aristarchus may have been personally known to those to whom the Apostle sends his greeting in the above-named letters.

they rushed with one accord into the theatre To preserve the order of the Greek, the Rev. Ver.places this clause before the preceding. The A.V. is more in agreement with the genius of the English language. The theatre was the scene of all the great games and exhibitions of the city. Its ruins still remain and give evidence that when this crowd assembled there it was a building that could hold 25,000 or 30,000 people (see Wood's Ephesus, p. 68; Fellowes, Asia Minor, p. 274). As Gaius and Aristarchus were not Jews, but the former perhaps of Roman extraction, if we may judge by his name, and the latter a Greek, with rights which even the Ephesian mob would not venture to outrage, we do not read of anything more done to them, than their being dragged along with the crowd towards the place of meeting. It might be thought that they could tell how St Paul was to be found, and when they could not, they were let go.