Acts 19:19

Curious arts [τ α π ε ρ ι ε ρ γ α]. The word means, literally, overwrought, elaborate, and hence recondite or curious, as magical practices. Only here and 1 Timothy 5:13, in its original sense of those who busy themselves excessively [π ε ρ ι] : busybodies. The article indicates the practices referred to in the context.

Books. Containing magical formulas. Heathen writers often allude to the Ephesian letters. These were symbols, or magical sentences written on slips of parchment, and carried about as amulets. Sometimes they were engraved on seals.

Burned [κ α τ ε κ α ι ο ν]. Burned them up [κ α τ α]. The imperfect is graphic, describing them as throwing book after book on the pile.

Counted [σ υ ν ψ η φ ι σ α ν]. Only here in New Testament. See on Luke 14:28. The preposition sun, together, in the compound verb, indicates the reckoning up of the sum - total.

Fifty thousand pieces of silver. If reckoned in Jewish money, about thirty - five thousand dollars; if in Greek drachmae, as is more probable, about nine thousand three hundred dollars.