Acts 28:30

ἔμεινε δὲ : Blass (so also Hackett, Lekebusch) makes the important remark that the aorist shows that Paul's condition was changed after the two years, cf. ἐκάθισε, Acts 18:11 (see also Burton, pp. 19, 20). When, therefore, Luke wrote his history, the inference is that the Apostle had been liberated either from prison or by death. Blass indicates another change, viz., that he may have been removed into the prætorium, and that his trial was just coming on. ἰδίῳ μισθ., see above on Acts 28:23. That the Apostle should have been able to hire a house at his own expense receives confirmation from the coincidence with Philippians 4:10; Philippians 4:14; Philippians 4:18; others have suggested (Wendt, 1899, Knabenbauer) that he may have gained the means of hiring it by his own work. See in this connection Rendel Harris, Four Lectures, etc., pp. 50, 51, and the extract from the Armenian Version of Ephrem's Commentary on the Acts. It would seem that Ephrem imagined that the rent of the lodging was paid by the proceeds of the cloak and books (2 Timothy 4:13). Lightfoot, Philippians, p. 9, holds that ἰδίῳ certainly distinguishes the μίσθωμα here from the ξενία above, see his note, and Grimm-Thayer, in loco. It is quite true that μίσθωμα is not used in this sense of a hired house elsewhere (indeed it is used especially of the wages of hire in a bad sense, Deuteronomy 23:18; Micah 1:7; Ezekiel 16:31), but Lightfoot admits that it may be used here exceptionally as a translation of the Latin conductum, meaning here a suite of apartments only, not the whole house (Lewin), the Latin meritoria (sc. loca) seems to be used very much in this same double sense of μίσθωμα. διετίαν ὅλην, cf. Acts 24:27, only in Luke, not in classical Greek, but in Philo (see also Grimm-Thayer, and Deissmann, Neue Bibelstudien, p. 86), so too τριετίαν only in Luke; see on Acts 20:31 The two years were spent not only in preaching, but in writing, as we may fairly believe, Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon, and Philippians. ἀπεδέχετο, see above, Acts 15:4; Acts 21:7, apparently greater freedom than in Cæsarea, Acts 24:23; if it was not for the notice in Philippians 1:13; Philippians 1:17, we might almost suppose that the Apostle was liberated on security or on bail; cf. the account of the imprisonment of Agrippa I. in Rome; see p. 486. πάντας : all, both Jews and Gentiles; not only the latter, as Bengel thought: “neminem excludebat Dei exemplo,” Grotius. εἰσπορ., see on Acts 9:28, most frequent in Luke, Friedrich, p. 7; see critical note.