Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 18:6

"And when they opposed themselves and blasphemed, he shook out his raiment and said unto them, Your blood [be] upon your own heads; I am clean: from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles." — Acts 18:6 (ASV)

And when they opposed themselves, and blasphemed.—The latter word includes the reviling of which the Apostle himself was the object, as well as blaspheming against God. Assuming what has been suggested in the Note on Acts 18:2, we may think of these disturbances as reproducing what had already taken place at Rome. We may, perhaps, trace an echo of such blasphemies in the words Anathema be Jesus, of which St. Paul speaks in 1 Corinthians 12:3 as having been uttered with the vehemence of a simulated inspiration, against which men needed to be warned.

He shook his raiment.—On the symbolic significance of the act, see Note on Matthew 10:14. As done by a Jew to Jews, no words and no act could so well express the Apostle’s indignant protest. It was the last resource of one who found appeals to reason and conscience powerless, and was met by brute violence and clamour.

Your blood be upon your own heads.—The phrase and thought were both essentially Hebrew. (See Note on Matthew 27:25.) We can hardly think of the Apostle as using them without a distinct recollection of the language which defined the responsibility of a prophet of the truth in Ezekiel 3:18-19.

From henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles.—The words are almost identical with those in Acts 13:46, and are explained by them. It is obvious in each case that the words have a limited and local application. The Apostle did not renounce all future work among the Jews, but gave up preaching to those at Corinth.