Acts 8:28

was returning The original has a conjunction, "andwas returning," i.e. at the termination of the feast.

read Esaias[Isaiah] the prophet He was evidently reading aloud (see Acts 8:30), and this was common among Orientals and was specially the practice of the Jews, who accompanied the reading with a good deal of bodily motion and considered this helpful to study. Thus T. B. Erubin53 b ad fin. "Beruriah found a student who was reading, but not aloud; she pushed him and said to him, Is it not written -Only when it is well ordered then it is kept"? If it is put in order by all thy two hundred and forty-eight limbs [thy study] will abide, but if not it will not abide. We have heard of a pupil of Rabbi Eliezer who studied but not aloud; and after three years he had forgotten his learning." And a little afterwards we read "Shemuel said to Rab Jehudah, Clever fellow! Open thy mouth when thou readest the Bible, and open thy mouth when thou studiest the Mishna, in order that the reading may abide, and that thy life may be prolonged. For it says (Proverbs 4:22), For life are they to them that find them" (or as the Rabbis preferred to interpret it, "to them that utter them forth").