Acts 21:29

τὸν Ἐφέσ.: if some of these Jews, as is very probable, came from Ephesus, they would have recognised Trophimus. The latter had not only come “as far as Asia,” Acts 20:4, but had evidently accompanied Paul to Jerusalem; on the statement and its bearing upon 2 Timothy 4:20, see Salmon, Introd., p. 401, and Weiss, Die Briefe Pauli an Timotheus und Titus, p. 354. προεωρακότες : antea videre; in classical Greek nowhere as here, but referring to future, or space, not to past time; Blass, in loco, compares 1 Thessalonians 2:2; Romans 3:9, for πρό. εἰς τὸ ἱερὸν, i.e., from the Court of the Gentiles (into which the uncircumcised Greeks like Trophimus and others might enter) into the inner Court, open to Jews only. The punishment for such transgression by a Gentile was death, even if he was a Roman citizen, Jos., B.J., vi., 2, 4. At the foot of the stair by which “the Court” in the strict sense of the word was approached there was a railing bearing notice in Greek and Latin with the prohibition and the punishment due to its violation. For one of these inscriptions discovered and published in 1871 by Clermont-Ganneau see Revue archéologique, xxiii., 1872, Schürer, Jewish People, div. i., vol. ii., p. 74, and div. ii., vol. i., p. 266. E.T. (where other references are given), Edersheim, Temple and its Services, p. 24, Plumptre, Acts, in loco, Blass, in loco, cf. Jos., Ant., xv., 11, 5, B.J., v., 5, 2.