Acts 16:13

πόλεως, see critical notes, and C. and H., p. 226, note. παρὰ ποταμόν : “by a river side,” A. and R.V., see critical notes; here Ramsay sees in the omission of the article a touch of local familiarity and renders “by the river side”. On the other hand Weiss holds that the absence of the article merely denotes that they supposed they should find a place of prayer, since a river provided the means for the necessary purifications. οὗ ἐνομ. προσευχὴ εἶναι, see critical notes: “where there was wont to be held a meeting for prayer” (Ramsay); on the nominative see above. A further difficulty lies in the word ἐνομίζετο. Can it bear the above rendering? Rendall, p. 103, thinks that it hardly admits of it; on the other hand Wendt and Grimm compare 2Ma 14:4, and see instances of the use of the passive voice in L. and., Herod., vi., 138. Thuc., iv., 32. Wendt renders “where there was according to custom a place for prayer”. The R.V. reads οὗ ἐνομίζομεν προσευχὴν εἶναι, “where we supposed there was a place of prayer”. There is very good authority for rendering προσευχή, “a place of prayer,” cf. 3Ma 7:20; Philo, In Flacc., 6; Jos., Vita, 54, cf. also Juvenal, iii., 295, and Tertullian, Adv. Nat., i., 13, etc. To these instances we may add a striking use of the word in an Egyptian inscription, possibly of the third century B.C., Deissmann, Neue Bibelstudien, pp. 49, 50, see also Curtius, Gesammelte Abhandlungen, ii. 542. No doubt the word occurs also in heathen worship for a place of prayer, Schürer, Jewish People, div. ii., vol. ii., p. 69, E.T., cf. also Kennedy, Sources of N. T. Greek, p. 214. Where there were no synagogues, owing perhaps to the smallness of the Jewish believers or proselytes, there may well have been a προσευχή, and St. Luke may have wished to mark this by the expression he chooses (in Acts 17:1 he speaks of a συναγωγή at Thessalonica), although on the other hand it must not be forgotten that προσευχή might be used of a large building capable of holding a considerable crowd (Jos., u. s.), and we cannot with certainty distinguish between the two buildings, Schürer, u. s., pp. 72, 73. That the river side (not the Strymon, but a stream, the Gangas or Gangites, which flows into the larger river) should be chosen as the place of resort was very natural for the purpose of the Levitical washings, cf. also Juvenal, Sat., iii., 11, and long before Tertullian's day the Decree of Halicarnassus, Jos., Ant., xiv., 10, 23, cf. Psalms 137:1; Ezra 8:15; Ezra 8:21, cf. Plumptre's note on Luke 6:12. ταῖς συνελθαύσαις γυν : “which were come together,” R.V., i.e., on this particular occasion; A. V. “resorted”. It is noticeable that in the three Macedonian towns, Philippi, Thessalonica, Berœa, women are specially mentioned as influenced by the Apostle's labours, and, as in the case of Lydia, it is evident that the women of Philippi occupied a position of considerable freedom and social influence. See this picture fully borne out by extant Macedonian inscriptions, which assign to women a higher social position in Macedonia than was the case for instance in Athens, Lightfoot, Philippians, pp. 55, 56; Ramsay, St. Paul, pp. 224, 227, 252. In this lies an answer to the strictures of Hilgenfeld, who regards the whole of Acts 16:13 as an interpolation of the “author to Theophilus,” and so also the expression πορ. ἡμῶν εἰς τὴν προσευχήν, whereas it was quite natural that Paul should go frequently to the Jewish house of prayer.