And when he had given him permission, Paul stood on the stairs, and beckoned with the hand unto the people. And when there was made a great silence, he spoke unto them in the Hebrew tongue, saying,
All Commentaries on Acts 21:40 Go To Acts 21
John Chrysostom
AD 407
But Paul said, I am a man which am a Jew of Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city: and I beseech you, suffer me to speak unto the people. And when he had given him license, Paul stood on the stairs, and beckoned with the hand unto the people. And when there was made a great silence, he spoke unto them in the Hebrew tongue, saying.
Observe how, when he discourses to those that are without, he does not decline availing himself of the aids afforded by the laws. Here he awes the tribune by the name of his city. And again, elsewhere he said, Openly, uncondemned, Romans as we are, they have cast us into prison. Acts 19:37 For since the tribune said, Are you that Egyptian? he immediately drew him off from that surmise: then, that he may not be thought to deny his nation, he says at once, I am a Jew: he means his religion. (b) What then? He did not deny (that he was a Christian): God forbid: for he was both a Jew and a Christian, observing what things he ought: since indeed he, most of all men, did obey the law: (a) as in fact he elsewhere calls himself, Under the law to Christ. 1 Corinthians 9:21 What is this, I pray? (c) The man that believes in Christ. And when discoursing with Peter, he says: We, Jews by nature.— But I beseech you, suffer me to speak unto the people. Galatians 2:15 And this is a proof, that he does not speak lies, seeing he takes all as his witnesses. Observe again how mildly he speaks. This again is a very strong argument that he is chargeable with no crime, his being so ready to make his defence, and his wishing to come to discourse with the people of the Jews. See a man well-prepared (τεταγμένον ἄνδρα)!— Mark the providential ordering of the thing: unless the tribune had come, unless he had bound him, he would not have desired to speak for his defence, he would not have obtained the silence he did. Standing on the stairs. Then there was the additional facility afforded by the locality, that he should have a high place to harangue them from— in chains too! What spectacle could be equal to this, to see Paul, bound with two chains, and haranguing the people! (To see him,) how he was not a whit perturbed, not a whit confused; how, seeing as he did so great a multitude all hostility against him, the ruler standing by, he first of all made them desist from their anger: then, how prudently (he does this).
