Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 13:46

"And Paul and Barnabas spake out boldly, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first be spoken to you. Seeing ye thrust it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles." — Acts 13:46 (ASV)

It was necessary.—The preachers recognized the necessity of following what they looked on as the divine plan in the education of mankind, and so they preached to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile (Romans 2:9–10). The former were offered, as the fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham, the high privilege of being the channel through which all families of the earth should be blessed by the knowledge of Christ (Genesis 22:18). When they rejected that offer, it was made, without their intervention, to the Gentiles.

Judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life.—There is a touch of righteous indignation, perhaps something like irony, in the words. The preacher had thought them “worthy” of the highest of all blessings, the life eternal which was in Christ Jesus, but they, in their boastful and envious pride, took what was really a lower estimate of themselves, and showed that they were “unworthy.” They passed sentence, ipso facto, on themselves.

Lo, we turn to the Gentiles.—We have to remember:

1. that the words were as an echo of those which the Apostle had heard in his trance in the Temple at Jerusalem (Acts 22:21);
2. that they would be heard, on the one hand, by the Gentiles with a joy until now unknown, and, on the other, by the Jews as a new cause of irritation.