Acts 10:28

How that it is an unlawful thing

(ως αθεμιτον εστιν). The conjunction ως is sometimes equivalent to οτ (that). The old form of αθεμιτος was αθεμιστος from θεμιστο (θεμιζω, θεμις, law custom) and α privative. In the N.T. only here and 1 Peter 4:3 (Peter both times). But there is no O.T. regulation forbidding such social contact with Gentiles, though the rabbis had added it and had made it binding by custom. There is nothing more binding on the average person than social custom. On coming from the market an orthodox Jew was expected to immerse to avoid defilement (Edersheim, Jewish Social Life, pp. 26-28; Taylor's Sayings of the Jewish Fathers, pp. 15, 26, 137, second edition). See also Acts 11:3; Galatians 2:12. It is that middle wall of partition between Jew and Gentile (Ephesians 2:14) which Jesus broke down.One of another nation

(αλλοφυλω). Dative case of an old adjective, but only here in the N.T. (αλλος, another, φυλον, race). Both Juvenal (Sat. XIV. 104, 105) and Tacitus (History, V. 5) speak of the Jewish exclusiveness and separation from Gentiles.And yet unto

(καμο). Dative of the emphatic pronoun (note position of prominence) with κα (χρασις) meaning here "and yet" or adversative "but" as often with κα which is by no means always merely the connective "and" (Robertson, Grammar, pp. 1182f.). Now Peter takes back both the adjectives used in his protest to the Lord (verse Acts 10:14) "common and unclean." It is a long journey that Peter has made. He here refers to "no one" (μηδενα), not to "things," but that is great progress.