Acts 10:9

St. Peter's Trance at Joppa, 9-16.

Acts 10:9. On the morrow. The distance from Cæsarea to Joppa is thirty-five miles along the coast-road due south. The messengers started late in the afternoon. Hence they would naturally arrive about the middle of the next day. If they travelled by night, this was quite according to the custom of the country (see Luke 11:5-6).

As they drew nigh unto the city. It was ‘about the sixth hour.' It is evidently intended that we should notice carefully the coincidence of time (see below, Acts 10:17, and Acts 11:11). No narrative could be written with clearer indications of providential guidance and of a Divine plan.

To the house-top to pray. It is equally important that we should notice the coincidence of prayer. It was in the exercise of prayer that Cornelius saw the heavenly visitant who told him to send for Peter; it was in the exercise of prayer that Peter was visited by the trance. It was through the meeting of these two silent streams of secret prayer that the conversion of Cornelius and its consequent blessing to all the world took place.

There is no better commentary on this aspect of the question than the familiar lines in the Chris-Han Year (Monday in Easter Week):

‘The course of prayer who knows?

It springs in silence where it will;

But streams shall meet it by and by

From thousand sympathetic hearts.

Unheard by all but angel ears.

The good Cornelius knelt alone.

The saint beside the ocean prayed,

The soldier in his chosen bower.

To each unknown his brother's prayer.

Yet brethren true in dearest love

Were they.'

The word (δῶμα) used here for the flat roof at the top of the house, is often so employed by later Greek writers. As to the choice of this place by St. Peter, every one acquainted with the flat roof of eastern houses knows how well adapted it is for prayer and meditation. For Biblical illustrations, see Deuteronomy 22:8; 2 Kings 23:12; Jeremiah 19:13; Zephaniah 1:5; Luke 5:19.