Acts 13:51

Acts 13:51. They shook off the dust of their feet against them, acting thus in accordance with the Master's command (Luke 9:5). The scribes taught that the dust of a heathen land defiled by the touch. Hence the shaking of the dust off the feet implied that the city was regarded as profane.

Came unto Iconium. This city was celebrated in the Middle Ages as the capital of the Seljukian Sultans. It was the first stage in the long and brilliant career of the Ottoman Turks. Iconium, Broussa, Adrianople, and lastly Constantinople, have been successively the capital cities of their vast empire. At the time of the visit of Paul and Barnabas, Iconium was a populous city and the capital of a distinct territory, and was ruled by a tetrarch. At the present time it is a town of about 30, 000 inhabitants; it is still called Konieh, but travellers relate that little if anything remains of Greek or Roman Iconium, save a few ancient inscriptions and fragments of sculpture which are built into the Turkish walls. It is about fifty miles east of Pisidian Antioch, near the foot of Mount Taurus. One curious relic of its former rank in the Ottoman monarchy it retains in the family of an ancient sovereign race, whose head, when a new sultan is proclaimed in Constantinople, always waives his right to the Ottoman throne in favour of the heir of the reigning house of Osman.