The Pulpit Commentary — Acts — Volume 2 — Section 90

would be likoly, thoreCore, to be eepecie.lly the t0.bem0.cle ({upd.o, ). It seems rather to hostile to Pe.ul. have been of the nature of that vow which Ver. 18.-Ilavlng tarried after thia yet ~osephns spee.ks of e.~ customary for persona many days for after this tarried there yet ID any affliction, viz. to make a vow that, a good while, and then, A.V.; for for into, for thirty days previons to tba.ton which they A.V.; Oenchrem for Oenchrea, A.V. Took intend to offer se.crifice, they will abate.in his lee.ve ; lt.'11'0Ta!d.µ.,,os, here e.nd a.gain in from wine and will shave off ({up1irra.cr0a,) ver. 21. This is a eomewhe.t peculiar nee of their hair, adding that Bernice was now at the word, which occurs also in Luke ix. 61 Jerusalem in order to perform soch a vow a.nd 2 Cor. ii. 13 (see too Me.rk vi. 46). (' Bell. Jud.,' ii. xv. l). Bot it further It is used in the ea.me sense in J osephns appears, from certain passages in the Mishna., (' Ant. Jud.,' :Ii. viii. 6). In a metaphorice.l that, if e.ny one had a Naze.rite vow upon him sense it means•• to renounce," "to bid e.dien outside the limits of the Holy Land, he to" (Luke xiv. 23). Of the si.x times it occurs could not fulfil soch vow till he was come in the New Teste.ment, four a.rein St. Luke's to the Holy Land, toJernee.lem; but it we.a writings and one in St. Panl's. With him e.llowable in soch case to cut his hair short Prisoilla and Aquila, he.ving shom his head (,ce/perr8cu T¾JV ,ce,Pa/\TJV), and ns some se.y to in Cenohrem, etc. There is great diversity to.ke it with him to Jerusalem, and there offer of opinion a.a to whether it was St. Paul or it at the same time that he offered his sacrifice Aquila who had the vow. 1 Meyer thinks and shaved his head ({upf,cracr0a,). 1 It would that the mention of Prisoille. before Aquila, seem, therefore, tbat either in a severe illness oontrary to the order in ver. 2 and in ver. or under some great danger ( avi:i-y1C1J) St. 26 ( where, however, the R. T. reads "Priscilla Paul had made such a vow; that he had and Aquila"), is a olear indication that Luke been unwilling to cnthis hair short at Corinth, meant the words ,wpd.µevos, 1ur./\., to refer where he we.a thrown so much into the society to Aquila, not to St. Paul, and Howson of Greeks, e.nd therefore did so at Cenchrem takes the ea.me view. But this is a very just before he embarked for Syria ; and that weak argmnent, refuted at once by Rom. he me.de all haste to reach Jerusalem in time xvi. 3 and 2 Tim. iv. 19, as well o.s by the for the Passover, that he might there whole ruu of the passage, in which Paul is e.ccomplish his vow (see Bishop Words- throughout the person spoken of; or, as Al- worth's note on eh. xviii. 18 ; and Fe.rrar's ford puts it, in the consecutive ne.rrative from • Life of St. Paul,' ii. p. 2). His motives for ver. 18 to ver. 25, there a.re nine aorist pe.rti- the vow may have been partly those de- ciples, of which eight apply to Paul, e.s the scribed on another occasion (eh. xxi. 24), and subject of the section, making it scarcely partly his own Jewish feelings of piety doubtful that the ninth applies to him like- showing themselves in the accustomed wuy. wise. Moreover, there is no conceivable reason Cenchrlllll, The ea.stem port of Corinth ; e. why the vow should be mentioned if it we.a considerable place. There was a Church taken by Aquila, and, whe.t is still more con- there, doubtles.s founded by St. Pe.ul dW'ing clusive, the person who weut to Jerusalem, his stay at Corinth (Rom. xvi. 1). i.e. Paul, must be the one who had the vow, Ver. 19.-They came for he came, A. V. and not the person who ste.yed behind, i.e. Aquila.. T.R.; hs left for left, A.V. They came to In fact, nobody would ever have thought of Ephesne. "No voyage across the 1Egean making Aquila. the subject if it were not for was more frequently rue.de than that between the thought that there is e.n incongruity with Corinth e.nd Ephesus. They were the Pe.ul's character in his me.king a vow of tha.t capita.ls of the two flourishing and peaceful kind. But we must te.ke whe.t we find in provinces of Ach11,ia and Asia, and the two Seri pture, and not force it to speak ow- own great mercantile towns on opposite sides thoughts. Ae rege.rds the nature of the vow, of the sea" (Howson, vol. i. 454). The it is not quite clear what it was. It was voyage would take from ten to fifteen days. not the simple Ne.zaritio vow described in Reasoned; 1i1E/\<x811, as in eh. xvii. 2, 17; Numb. vi. 18-21 ; nor is the word here used ver. 4; xix. 8, 9; xx. 7, 9; xxiv. 25. As by St. Luke (1mp&µevos) the one which is regards the expression, left them there, it there and elsewhere employed by the LXX., probably arises from some actual detail a.nd by St. Luke himself in eh. x.xi. 24, of the.t which made it the natural one to use. If, fine.I shaving of the hair of the N azarite for for example, the synagogue wa.s just outside the pw-pose of offering it at the door of the city, and Paul, parting with Aqnile. and Priacillo. in the city, ho.d gone otf imme- 1 Augustine, Bede, Erasmus, Luther, Beza, die.tely to tho synagogue, the phrase used Oalvin, Bengel, Rosenmiiller, Olshausen, would be the natural one; or the worJs, "he Lange, Ewald, Bleek, Alford, Wordsworth, left them there," may be spoken with Furmr, Lewin, eto., refer it to St. Paul; tWh? Vulp;ate, lio.mmond, Grotius, Valckenaer, 1 For the difference betweeu ,ce,p<aia& 1eseler1 Moyer, Howaou, eto, 1 to A4uila. and (up~rra,rOa,, seo l Cor, xi, 6.  !l2 TRE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. [ort. xvtn. 1-28.