John Gill Commentary Acts 18:3

"and because he was of the same trade, he abode with them, and they wrought, for by their trade they were tentmakers." — Acts 18:3 (ASV)

And because he was of the same craft ,
Art, occupation, or trade:

he abode with them ;
in the same house in which they were:

and worked ;
with his own hands, to support himself, for he was a stranger in this place; and as yet here was no church to minister to him; and when there was, he would take nothing from them, that the false teachers, who rose up among them, might not make any handle of it against him, and to the prejudice of the Gospel; though otherwise he thought it his just due to receive a maintenance from the churches; and insisted upon it as an ordination of Christ.

He learned a trade while among the Jews, among whom it was common for their greatest doctors to be trained in some trade or another; (See Gill on Mark 6:3).

for by their occupation they were tent makers ;
either for the soldiers, made of sack cloth of hair, or of leather, and of the skins of various animals ^F6 , sewed together; hence the phrase, "sub pellibus", "under the skins", is used for to lie in tents {g}: or the tents they made were canopies made of linen, and other things, which were erected in the summer season to shade and screen from the heat of the sun; though others take them for a sort of tapestry, or hangings, which they made for theatres, palaces, and stately rooms;

and according to the Syriac version, they were horses' trappings which they made: Perhaps they were of the same occupation with Menedemus the philosopher, who was (skhnorrafov) , "a sewer of tents" ^F8 .

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FOOTNOTES:

• F6: Alex. ab Alex. Genial. Dier. l. 1. c. 12.
• F8: Laert. Vit. Philosoph. l. 2. p. 172.