Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 21

After we were gotten from them...—The Greek verb is more emphatic and could almost be translated, “When we had torn ourselves away from them.”

We came with a straight course unto Coos...—The navigation is, as before (Acts 20:14–15), from port to port.

It would hardly be within the scope of a Commentary to discuss at length the history of each place.

It will be enough to note that Coos was famous for both its wines and its silk fabrics, of fine and almost transparent tissue; that Rhodes, then famous for its Colossus, was one of the largest and most flourishing islands of the Archipelago, and is memorable for us in later history as connected with the history of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John; that Patara was a harbour on the coast of Lycia.

The ship in which the travellers had left Troas and Miletus was bound for this harbour, and they therefore had to look out for another.

Fortunately, there was no long delay, and they embarked at once on a merchant ship bound for Phoenicia.

When we had discovered Cyprus . . .—The use of a technical term here is specially characteristic of St. Luke. Here the meaning is that, as soon as they sighted Cyprus, they stood to the southeast, and so had it on their left as they continued their voyage to Syria. At Tyre they had again to change their ship. On the position and history of Tyre, see Note on Matthew 11:21.

And finding disciples, we tarried there seven days.—The word for “finding” implies a previous search. They inquired, when they landed, among the crowded streets of the still busy port, whether any Christians were to be found there. It will be remembered that St. Paul had passed through that region at least once before (See Note on Acts 15:3). The church had probably been planted by the labors of Philip, as the Evangelist of Caesarea. It is clear that the believers there were prepared to welcome St. Paul and his companions, and showed a warm interest in their welfare.

The “seven days’” stay, as at Troas (see Note on Acts 20:6), and afterwards at Puteoli (Acts 28:14), was obviously for the purpose of attending one, or possibly more than one, meeting of the church for the Lord’s Supper on the Lord’s Day. The utterances through the Spirit implied the exercise of prophetic gifts at such a meeting.

It seems, at first, somewhat startling that St. Paul should reject what is described as an inspired counsel; or, if we believe him also to have been guided by the Spirit, that the two inspirations should thus clash.

We remember, however, that men received the Spirit by measure, and the prophets of the churches at Tyre, as elsewhere (Acts 20:23), though foreseeing the danger to which the Apostle was exposed, might yet be lacking in that higher inspiration which guided the decision of the Apostle, and which he himself defines as the spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7).

This is, it is believed, a much more adequate explanation than that which sees in the Apostle’s conduct a somewhat self-willed adherence to his own human purpose, and finds a chastisement for that self-will in the long delay and imprisonment that followed on the slighted warnings.

He was right, we may boldly say, to go to Jerusalem in spite of consequences. The repeated warnings are, however, an indication of the great bitterness of feeling with which the Judaizers and unbelieving Jews were known to be animated against him.

We departed, and went our way.—Literally, and were going on our way, the tense bringing before us something like a procession making its way from the city to the shore.

We kneeled down on the shore, and prayed.—The choice of the place was in itself natural enough. It was the spot where the two groups of friends were to part, and it was removed from the stir and bustle of the city. We may add that this choice aligned with the common Jewish practice of using the banks of rivers or the seashore as a place of prayer. The beach of Tyre became for the time a proseuchè. (See Note on Acts 16:13.)

It seems implied from the use of the plural that, in this instance, St. Paul was not the only spokesman for the prayers, but that others also (probably St. Luke himself and the leading members of the Church of Tyre) joined in reciprocal intercession.

We took ship.—Literally, we embarked in the ship. The article probably, though not necessarily, indicates that they went in the same ship that had brought them, and which, after discharging her cargo at Tyre, was now bound for Caesarea.