Acts 17:10

εὐθέως … ἐξέπεμ.: there was need of immediate action, either in obedience to the direct charge of the magistrates that Paul should not come again to Thessalonica, or from danger of a revival of the tumult. That St. Paul left Thessalonica with grief and pain is evident from 1 Thessalonians 2:17-20, but he felt that the separation was necessary at least for a time. But still he looked back upon Thessalonica and his work with an ungrudging affection, and his converts were his glory and joy. In the opening words of his First Epistle, Acts 1:7 (cf. 2 Thessalonians 1:4; 2 Corinthians 8:1), he speaks in a way which not only implies that his own work extended further in and from Thessalonica than the Acts alone enables us to learn, but that the furtherance of the Gospel was due to the Thessalonians themselves. See McGiffert, p. 255, on St. Paul's quiet hand-to-hand work at Thessalonica. For it was not only in the synagogue that St. Paul laboured, as in the message of the Gospel was formal and official, but amongst them who were working like himself for their daily bread, 1 Thessalonians 2:9; 2 Thessalonians 3:8, see Ramsay's note, Church in the Roman Empire, p. 85, on St. Paul's work at Thessalonica. The phrase “night and day,” 1 Thessalonians 2:9, need not imply, as the Speaker's Commentary, that Paul had only the Sundays for preaching, because his other days were so fully occupied; but the phrase means that he started work before dawn, and thus was able to devote some of the later part of the day to preaching. On the striking parallel between the characteristics of the Thessalonians of St. Paul's Epistles and the Acts and the characteristics which were marked by St. Jerome in his day, see Speaker's Commentary, iii., 701. Βέροιαν (or Βέρροια): in the district of Macedonia called Emathia, Ptol., iii., 12, originally perhaps Pherœa, from Pheres, its founder (see Wetstein): about fifty miles southwest of Thessalonica. It was smaller and less important than the latter, but still possessing a considerable population and commerce, owing to its natural advantages, now Verria or Kara Feria, see B.D. 2 and Hastings' B.D., Renan, St. Paul, p. 162, and C. and H., small edition, p. 261. According to the Itineraries, two roads led from Thessalonica to Berœa, Wetstein quotes a curious passage from Cicero, In Pisonem, xxvi., which may possibly indicate that Paul and Silas went to Berœa on account of its comparative seclusion (so Alford, Farrar, Felten): Cicero calls it “oppidum devium”. εἰς τὴν συν. The Jewish population was at least considerable enough to have a synagogue, and thither Paul, according to his custom, went first. ἀπῄεσαν : only here in N.T., cf. 2Ma 12:1, 4Ma 4:8; here it may imply that on their arrival Paul and Silas left their escort, and went into the synagogue.