at the hands of his own countrymen, the Acts of the Apostles contain no record ; and of the three occasions on which he was beaten mth rods, that mentioned in Acts 16, 22 as having occurred at Philippi is the only one of which we have else- where any account. In the law of Moses, Deut. 25, 3, it was forbidden to inflict more than forty stripes on an offender, and it appears that the Jews, in their punctilious observance of the letter of the law, were in the habit of inflicting only thirty-nine so as to be sure not to transgress the prescribed limit. From the distinction which the apostle makes between receiving stripes at the hands of the Jews and being beaten -wdth rods, it is probable that the Jews were at that period accustomed to use a lash. The later Rabbis say that the scourge was made with three thongs, so that each blow in- flicted three stripes ; and that only thirteen strokes were given to make up the prescribed number of thirty-nine lashes. Once was I stoned. Acts 14, 19. On this occasion his ene- mies supposed he was dead. He must therefore have been rendered for the time insensible. Thrice I suffered shijncrecJc. Of this we have no mention in the Acts. The shipwreck in which Paul was involved on his journey to Rome, was at a much later period. A night and a day have I been in the deep. That is, for that length of time he was tossed about by the waves, clinging to a fragment of a wreck. A night and day (v^jx-^rz/xepov), i. e. a whole day of twenty-four hours. The Jews commenced the day at sunset.
26. (In) journeyings often, (in) perils of waters, (in) perils of robbers, (in) perils by (mine own) coun- trymen, (in) perils by the heathen, (in) perils in the city, (in) perils in the wilderness, (in) perils in the sea, (in) perils among false brethren.
Our translators have throughout this passage suppUed the preposition in. But as kv in the preceding verse is used in- strumentally, so here we have the mstrumental dative, hy joimieyi7igs, hy perils., &c. It was by voluntarily exposing himself to these dangers, and by the endurance of these sut- ferings the apostle proved his superior claim to be regarded as a devoted minister of Christ. Perils of water., literally, of rivers ; as distinguished from the dangers of the sea mentioned afterwards. History shows that in the country traversed in