Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 11:28

"And there stood up one of them named Agabus, and signified by the Spirit that there should be a great famine over all the world: which came to pass in the days of Claudius." — Acts 11:28 (ASV)

There stood up one of them named Agabus.—The same prophet appears again in Acts 21:10 as coming down from Jerusalem to Caesarea. Nothing more is known of him. The prophecy of the “dearth” or “famine” was in part an echo of Matthew 24:7.

Throughout all the world.—Literally, the inhabited earth, used, as in Luke 2:1; Luke 4:5, and elsewhere in the New Testament, for the Roman empire.

Which came to pass in the days of Claudius Caesar.—The reign of Caligula lasted from A.D. 37–41, that of Claudius from A.D. 41–54. The whole reign of the latter emperor was memorable for frequent famines (Suetonius, Claudius 28; Tacitus, Annals 12.43).

Josephus (Antiquities 20.5) speaks of one as specially affecting Judea and Syria, under the procuratorship of Cuspius Fadus, in A.D. 45. The population of Jerusalem was reduced to great distress and was chiefly relieved by the bounty of Helena, Queen of Adiabene, who sent in large supplies of corn, figs, and other articles of food.

She was herself a proselyte to Judaism and was the mother of Izates, whose probable conversion to the faith of Christ by Ananias of Damascus is mentioned in the Note on Acts 9:10. The title of “Caesar” is omitted in the better manuscripts.