Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 14

Both of the Jews and also of the Greeks.—The latter term is used in its wider sense, as in Mark 7:26 and elsewhere, as equivalent to Gentile, but it implies that those who were so described spoke and understood Greek. In the former instance these would probably be the “proselytes of the gate” who heard the Apostles in the synagogue.

The unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles . . .—It is the distinguishing feature of nearly all the persecutions in the Acts that they originated in the hostility of the Jews. The case of Demetrius furnishes almost the only exception (Acts 19:24), and even there the Jews apparently fomented the enmity of the Greek craftsmen. So at a considerably later date (A.D. 169) we find them prominent in bringing about the persecution which ended in the death of Polycarp at Smyrna (Mart. Polyc., chapter 13).

Long time therefore abode they.—This can hardly be understood as involving a stay of less than several months, during which Paul and Barnabas, as before, were working for their livelihood.

Speaking boldly.—The “boldness” consisted, as the context shows, in a full declaration of the gospel of the grace of God as contrasted with the narrowing Judaism with which the Greek proselytes had previously been familiar.

Granted signs and wonders to be done by their hands.—It will be noted that here also, as so often elsewhere, the miracles that were performed came as the confirmation of faith, not as its foundation.

The multitude of the city was divided.—The context shows that St. Luke writes of the bulk of the Gentile population. No numbers are given, but we may fairly assume that the converts were in a minority, and that they belonged, as a rule, to the lower classes (1 Corinthians 1:26–27), and that the chief men and women of the city, as at the Pisidian Antioch (Acts 13:50), were against them.

The “rulers” who are named would seem, from the form of punishment selected, to have been those of the Jewish synagogue, and the crime of which the preachers were accused, as in the case of Stephen, to have been blasphemy. (See Notes on Acts 7:58; John 10:31.)

To use them despitefully.—The verb expresses wanton insult and outrage. St. Paul uses the noun derived from it to express the character of his own conduct as a persecutor (1 Timothy 1:13), and must have felt, as afterwards in the actual stoning of Acts 14:19, that he was receiving the just reward of his own deeds.