John Gill Commentary Acts 21

And finding a ship sailing over to Phoenicia
For it seems that the ship they went aboard at Assos (Acts 20:13) went no further, at least in the way the apostle was going, than Patara; but finding another ship, which was bound for Phoenicia, for the city of Tyre, which bordered on the land of Israel, and indeed originally belonged to Canaan; see (Acts 11:19) .

we went aboard;
the ship:

and set sail;
on the voyage.

Now when we had discovered Cyprus
An island, as the Syriac version here calls it, which lay between Syria and Cilicia; (See Gill on Acts 4:36); and was, according to R. Benjamin ^F12 , four days sail from Rhodes, before mentioned:

we left it on the left hand ,
and sailed into Syria; that part of it called Phoenicia:

and landed at Tyre ;
the chief city of Phoenicia, famous for navigation and commerce: it stood about four furlongs distant from the shore, and was joined to the continent by Alexander the great {m}. The account Jerom ^F14 gives of it is this, "Tyre, the metropolis of Phoenicia, in the tribe of Nephthalim, is near twenty miles from Caesarea Philippi; this was formerly an island, but made continent land by Alexander:--its chief excellency lies in shell fish and purple."

It was a very ancient city, though it seems not so ancient as Sidon, from which it was distant about two hundred furlongs. Herodotus ^F15 says, that in his time it had been inhabited two thousand three hundred years; Hiram was king of it in Solomon's time; yes, mention is made of it in Joshua's time, if the text in (Joshua 19:29) is rightly translated: some say it was built seventy six years before the destruction of Troy. It is to be distinguished into old Tyre, which was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, and the island of Tyre, which was conquered by Alexander, and new Tyre annexed, by him to the continent.

In the Hebrew language it is called (rwu) , "Tzur", or "Tzor", which signifies a "rock", being built on one; though some think it has its name from (rwhu) , "Tzehor", which signifies "brightness"; it is now called Sur or Suri, and is quite desolate, being only a receptacle of thieves and robbers:

though R. Benjamin says, in his time, new Tyre was a very good city, and had a port within it, into which ships go between two towers; and that there were in it four hundred Jews, and some of them skilful in the Talmud; --who further observes, that if anyone ascended the walls of new Tyre, he might see Tyre the crowning city, (Isaiah 23:8) which was a stone's cast from the new; but if a man would go in a boat on the sea, he might see towers, streets, and palaces in the bottom ^F16 :

for there the ship was to unlade her burden ;
which she had taken in, in the ports where she had been, but where is not certain; for that she had been at Ephesus, and took in her lading there, as Grotius thinks, does not appear; since this was not the ship the apostle and his company sailed in from Miletus, but which they went aboard at Patara, (Acts 21:1Acts 21:2) .

FOOTNOTES:

• F12: Itinerar. p. 30.
• F14: De locis Hebraicis, fol. 96. K.
• F15: Euterpe, l. 2. c. 44.
• F16: ltinerar. p. 35, 36.

And finding disciples

At Tyre, for the Gospel had been preached in Phoenicia by the ministers of the word, who were scattered by the persecution raised at the death of Stephen; and here were brethren, such as had believed in Christ, embraced and professed his Gospel, and were baptized in his name; see (Acts 11:19) (15:3) and who also had extraordinary gifts.

And there was no doubt a Gospel church founded in this place, though who presided over it in the first century, we have no account; in the "second" century there was a church here, and Cassius was bishop of it^F17; in the "third" century there were some martyrs in this place, who suffered under Dioclesian, and bore innumerable stripes with great courage and constancy, and after that fought with beasts, as bears, leopards, boars, and bulls, and at the same time Tyrannio, bishop of this church, also suffered martyrdom {r}; in the "fourth" century there was a synod at Tyre under Constantine, to which he wrote a letter^F19. There was a bishop of this church present at the council of Nice, in the times of the said emperor; in this age Paulinus and Dorotheus were bishops of Tyre; in the "fifth" century Irenaeus was bishop of Tyre, and then it was the metropolitan of Phoenicia; and in the "sixth" century, there was a bishop of the same church present at the fifth council of Rome and Constantinople^F20.

Of the bishops of Tyre in the several centuries, the learned Reland^F21 has a more particular account; according to him, Cassius, bishop of this church, was in the synod held at Caesarea, about the year 198. Paulinus, another bishop of Tyre, was in another council held at the same place, in the year 318. Zeno subscribed in the council of Nice, in the year 325, the first among the bishops of Phoenicia; Vitalis was in the council at Sardica, in the year 347. Uranius subscribed in the council held at Seleucia by the Semiarians, in the year 359; another Zeno bishop of this church was present at the second council at Constantinople, in the year 381; and mention is made of Photius bishop of Tyre, in the acts of the Chalcedon council, held in the year 451, as is also Eusebius in the acts of the council at Constantinople, in the year 553:

we tarried there seven days ;

either waiting for a ship to proceed on further; or in choice, to enjoy the conversation of the disciples, which was very delightful, and to confirm them in the faith:

who said to Paul through the Spirit, that he should not go up to
Jerusalem ;

not that the Spirit of God in these persons contradicted his own impulse in the apostle, by which he was moved to go to Jerusalem, see (Acts 20:22) . The sense is, that these disciples, by the spirit of prophecy, knew that if the apostle went to Jerusalem, many evil things would befall him; wherefore of their own spirit, and out of love to him, they advise him not to go.

FOOTNOTES:

• F17: Euseb. Eccl. Hist. l. 5. c. 25.
• F19: Ib. de Vita Constantin. l. 4. c. 41, 42.
• F20: Magdeburg. Hist. Eccl. cent. 4. c. 2. p. 2. c. 10. p. 553, 554. cent. 5. c. 2. p. 3. c. 7. p. 417. cent. 6. c.
• F21: Palestina Ilustrata, l. 3. p. 1054, 1055.

And when we had accomplished those days The seven days before mentioned:

we departed and went our way ; from their quarters where they lodged, or from some one house of the disciples, where they met, and had conversed together:

and they all brought us on our way, with wives and children, till we were out of the city ; that is, the disciples, even all of them that dwelt in that city, with their whole families, their wives and children, accompanied the apostle and those that were with him, through the streets of the city of Tyre, till they came out of it to the shore, where lay the ship they were to go aboard;

and which was a mark of their affection and respect to the apostle, as well as a token of their public spirit, that they were not ashamed of Christ and his ministers, nor of their profession of the Gospel:

and we kneeled down on the shore and prayed ; which was agreeably to the custom of the Jews, who had, as Tertullian observes ^F23 , their "orationes litterales", their prayers at the sea shore; (See Gill on Acts 16:13).

FOOTNOTES:

• F23: Ad nationes, l. 1. c. 13.