Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 3:11

"And as he held Peter and John, all the people ran together unto them in the porch that is called Solomon`s, greatly wondering." — Acts 3:11 (ASV)

In the porch that is called Solomon’s.—The porch—or better, portico or cloister—was outside the Temple, on the eastern side. In the Herodian Temple, it consisted of a double row of Corinthian columns, about thirty-seven feet high. It received its name because it had been partly constructed with fragments of the older edifice when the Temple was rebuilt by Zerubbabel.

The people tried to persuade Herod Agrippa the First to pull it down and rebuild it, but he shrank from the risk and cost of such an undertaking (Josephus, Antiquities 20.9.7). It was, like the porticos in all Greek cities, a favorite gathering place, especially as it faced the morning sun in winter. (See Note on John 10:23.)

The memory of what had then been the result of their Master’s teaching must have been fresh in the minds of the two disciples. Then the people had complained of being kept in suspense as to whether Jesus claimed to be the Christ; and when He spoke of being One with the Father, they had taken up stones to stone Him (John 10:31–33). Now they were to hear His name as Holy and Just, as “the Servant of Jehovah,” as the very Christ (Acts 3:13–14; Acts 3:18).