Acts 19:38

Have a matter against any one

(εχουσιν προς τινα λογον). For this use of εχω λογον with προς see Matthew 5:32; Colossians 3:13. The town-clerk names Demetrius and the craftsmen (τεχνιτα) as the parties responsible for the riot.The courts are open

(αγοραιο αγοντα). Supply ημερα (days), court days are kept, or συνοδο, court-meetings are now going on, Vulgate conventus forenses aguntur. Old adjective from αγορα (forum) marketplace where trials were held. Cf. Acts 17:4. There were regular court days whether they were in session then or not.And there are proconsuls

(κα ανθυπατο εισιν). Asia was a senatorial province and so had proconsuls (general phrase) though only one at a time, "a rhetorical plural" (Lightfoot). Page quotes from an inscription of the age of Trajan on an aqueduct at Ephesus in which some of Luke's very words occur (νεωκοροσ, ανθυπατοσ, γραμματευσ, δημος).Let them accuse one another

(εγκαλειτωσαν αλληλοις). Present active imperative of εγκαλεω (εν, καλεω), old verb to call in one's case, to bring a charge against, with the dative. Luke uses the verb six times in Acts for judicial proceedings (Acts 19:38; Acts 19:40; Acts 23:28; Acts 23:29; Acts 26:2; Acts 26:7). The town-clerk makes a definite appeal to the mob for orderly legal procedure as opposed to mob violence in a matter where money and religious prejudice unite, a striking rebuke to so-called lynch-law proceedings in lands today where Christianity is supposed to prevail.