Acts 11:28

Acts 11:28. There stood up one of them named Agabus. He appears again many years later (Acts 21:10) in the same prophetic character, and again in connection with Judaea. From that passage we gain some impression of the manner in which certain of these prophetic communications were made. In that case Agabus employed gesture and symbol, like those of which we read on similar occasions in the Old Testament. In the present instance much life is given to the occasion by its being said that it was when he ‘stood up' (άναστάς) that he uttered his prophecy.

Signified by the Spirit. This is quite in harmony with what we read elsewhere in this book regarding such communications. There are two very marked occasions when the Holy Spirit is said to have given indications of coming difficulty and disaster. One was on the Second Missionary Progress of St. Paul, when his steps were ultimately guided to Europe. His wish was to proclaim the Gospel in Asia; but he was ‘forbidden of the Holy Ghost.' On this he made in effort to evangelize Bithynia; ‘but the Spirit suffered him not' (Acts xvi 6, 7). The other was at the close of his Third Missionary Progress, when he went in much despondency towards Jerusalem, ‘not knowing the things that should befall him there;' only, he added, addressing the Ephesian elders at Miletus, ‘The Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me' (Acts 20:23). It was at a subsequent point of this journey that he had that second meeting with Agabus which has been already mentioned; and still there is the same reference to the direction of the Spirit. This prophet ‘took Paul's girdle, and bound his own hands and feet, and said, Thus saith the Holy Ghost, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles' (Acts 21:11).

Great dearth throughout all the world. We learn from the best historical sources that this was a period of much distress in many parts of the Empire through famine, and that in this time of general scarcity there was special distress of this kind in Judea. This is quite enough to satisfy all the conditions of the case. There has been much discussion as to the precise meaning of the term (ἡ οἰκουμίνη) here translated ‘the whole world.' The safest plan is to regard it as a term vaguely denoting the whole Roman Empire, and equivalent to the Latin ‘orbis terrarum.' So it is used by Joseph us. We must not forget, however, that it is employed in a more restricted sense, as denoting Judæa, in the LXX. (Isaiah 10:23).

Which came to pass in the days of Claudius Cæsar. This implies that the present portion of the Apostolic history was not written in the reign of Claudius. The clause is to be regarded as a parenthetic note; and it is an instance of St. Luke's habit of marking dates accurately (see in his Gospel, Acts 1:5; Acts 2:2; Acts 3:1). It must be added that this famine is one of the converging circumstances which lead us to the year 44 A. D. as one of the two critical dates which help us to fix, in its main features, the absolute chronology of St. Paul's life.