Acts 21:15

Acts 21:15. And after those days we took up our carriages, and went up to Jerusalem. There is a variety here in the Greek text. The literal translation of the word found in the Received Text (ἀποσκευασάμενοι) would be, ‘having stowed away our baggage,' that is, having stored our heavy packages away in Cæsarea to await our return. The reading, however, of the older and more trustworthy authorities is ε ̓ πισκευασα ́ μενοι, which is best rendered by ‘having packed up our baggage,' that is, having placed it upon pack-horses or other beasts of burden with a view of carrying it with us up to Jerusalem. The alms which had been gathered with so much care and pains from many churches probably constituted a portion of this luggage. This precious and important charge, perhaps, was what St. Luke was especially alluding to here. The apparently strange English expression, ‘we took up our carriages,' was in common use for ‘the things carried' at the time when the Authorised Version was brought out. A similar use of the word ‘carriages' we find in the description in the prophet's vision of the march of the invader (Sennacherib) toward Jerusalem (Isaiah 10:28): ‘He is come to Aiath, he is passed to Migron; at Michmash he hath laid up his carriages.' See, too, for a similar use of ‘carriages,' Judges 18:21; 1 Samuel 17:22; Isaiah 46:1.