Acts 28:23

ταξάμενοι : cf. Matthew 28:16, and Polyb., xviii., 36, 1, for a similar phrase; a mutual arrangement between the two parties; only here in the middle voice in Acts. τὴν ξενίαν : may = τὸ μίσθωμα, Acts 28:30 (Weiss, Holtzmann), or it may refer to entertainment in the house of a friend, cf. Acts 21:16, and Philem., Acts 28:22. Lewin urges that although we can well understand that Paul's friends would wish to entertain him, we have no evidence that the strictness of the military guard was thus far relaxed, and he also presses the fact that Suidas and Hesychius explain ξενία = κατάλυμα, καταγώγιον, as if it meant a place of sojourn for hire; see especially for the whole question Lewin, St. Paul, ii. 238; but see on the other hand Lightfoot, Philippians, p. 9, who lays stress on N.T. passages quoted above, and Grimm-Thayer, sub v. πλείονες : more than at the first time; Blass takes it as = plurimi, cf. Acts 2:40; Acts 13:31. ἐξετίθετο, cf. Acts 11:4; Acts 18:26, and in Acts 7:21 in a different sense, nowhere else in N.T. J. Weiss and Vogel both lay stress upon the recurrence of the word in the medical writer Dioscorides; for other references, Grimm-Thayer, sub v. It is possible that the middle here, as in Acts 11:4, gives it a reflexive force, the Apostle vindicates his own conduct (Rendall). Μωσέως : from the law of Moses, whose enemy he was represented to be, no less than from the Prophets. πείθων suavissime, Bengel; on the conative present participle see Burton, p. 59, but here the word is used not simply de conatu; it refers here to the persuasive power of St. Paul's words, although it does not say that his words resulted in conviction. ἀπὸ πρωῒ ἕως ἑσπέρας, cf. for similar expressions Exodus 18:13-14 A, Job 4:20 [435] S, and other passages where πρωΐθεν is similarly used (H. and R.).

[435] Codex Alexandrinus (sæc. v.), at the British Museum, published in photographic facsimile by Sir E. M. Thompson (1879).