Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 13:18

"And for about the time of forty years as a nursing-father bare he them in the wilderness." — Acts 13:18 (ASV)

Suffered he their manners.—The Greek word so rendered differs by only a single letter from one that signifies “to nurse, to carry, as a father carries his child.” Many of the better manuscripts, versions, and early writers give the latter reading, and it obviously fits far better with the conciliatory drift of St. Paul’s teaching than one that implied reproach. The word is found in the Greek of Deuteronomy 1:31 (bare thee, as a man doth bear his son), where some manuscripts also give the other word, and suggests the inference, already mentioned, that this chapter, as well as Isaiah 1:0, had been read as one of the lessons for the day.