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Acts 16:1. κατήντησε: only in Luke and Paul, nine times in Acts, four times in Paul, Acts 18:19; Acts 18:24, Acts 20:15, Acts 21:7, Acts 25:13, Acts 26:7, Acts 27:12, Acts 28:13, 1 Corinthians 10:11; 1 Corinthians 14:36, Ephesians 4:13, Php 3:11. But whilst in St. Paul it is used in a figurative sense, it is used eight times by St. Luke of arriving at a place and making some stay there, cf. 2Ma 4:21; 2Ma 4:44. The fact that the verb is thus used frequently in the second part of Acts and not in 1–12 is surely easily accounted for by the subjects of the narrative (Hawkins, Horæ Synopticæ, p. 147).—εἰς Δέρβην καὶ Λ.: if we read εἰς before Λ., also (see critical note): “he came also to Derbe and to Lystra”. The purpose was implied in Acts 15:36, but here places mentioned in the inverse order of Acts 14:6 since coming from Cilicia through the “Cilician Gates” St. Paul would visit Derbe first, see Hastings’ B.D., “Derbe” (Ramsay). The two places are grouped together as a region according to the Roman classification (Ramsay, St. Paul, pp. 110, 179). The second εἰς before Λ. marks that while Derbe is mentioned as a place visited, Lystra is the scene of the events in the sequel.—καὶ ἰδού: indicating the surprising fact that a successor to Mark was found at once (so Weiss); whilst Hort still more significantly marks the form of the phrase by pointing out that St. Luke reserves it for sudden and as it were providential interpretations, Ecclesia, p. 179, cf. Acts 1:10, Acts 8:17, Acts 10:17, Acts 11:7 : however disheartening had been the rupture with Barnabas, in Timothy Paul was to find another “son of consolation,” cf. Hort’s comment on 1 Timothy 1:18 in this connection, u. s., pp. 179–185. It must not however be forgotten that there are good reasons for seeing in Timothy not the successor of Barnabas (this was Silas), but of Mark. It could hardly be said of one in the position of Silas that he was like Mark a ὑπηρέτης, on a mere subordinate footing, whereas on the other hand the difference of age between Barnabas and Timothy, and their relative positions to St. Paul would have naturally placed Timothy in a subordinate position from the first.—ἐκεῖ, i.e., at Lystra, most probably. The view that reference is made not to Lystra but to Derbe arises from supposing that in Acts 20:4 the word Δερβαῖος refers to Timothy and not to Gaius, the truth being that Timothy is not described because already well known. Certainly the fact that his character was testified of by those of Lystra, as well as St. Paul’s reference to Lystra in 2 Timothy 3:11, seems to favour Lystra as being at all events the home of Timothy, if not his birthplace. There is no reason why the Gaius mentioned as of Macedonia, Acts 19:29, should be identified with the Gaius of Acts 20:4. Gaius was a very common name, and in the N.T. we have apparently references to four persons bearing the name. Blass however refers Δερβαῖος in Acts 20:4 to Timothy.—υἱὸς γυναικός τ. Ἰουδ. πιστῆς π. δὲ Ε.: such marriages although forbidden by the law, Ezra 10:2, were sanctioned under certain conditions, cf. Acts 24:24 in the case of Drusilla, wife of Aziz, king of Emesa (see also C. and H., p. 203), who became a proselyte and actually accepted circumcision. In the Diaspora such marriages would probably be more or less frequent, especially if the husband became a proselyte. In this case even if he were ranked as one, it could only have been as a “proselyte of the gate,” otherwise Timothy would surely have been circumcised. We cannot argue from the fact that the boy had been trained in the Jewish Scriptures that his father was a proselyte, for the early training of the child was evidently, the work of the mother, 2 Timothy 3:15. But such a duty according to Jewish law rested primarily upon the father, and the fact that the father here is described as a Greek, without any qualifying adjective as in the case of the wife, indicates that he was a heathen, see Weiss, in loco; Edersheim, Jewish Social Life, p. 115. The mother, Eunice (on spelling see Hastings’ B.D.), may conceivably have been a proselyte, as the name is Greek, as also that of Lois, but Ἰουδ. seems to indicate that she was a Jewess by birth. Whether she was a widow or not we cannot say, although there is some evidence, see critical note, which points to the influence of some such tradition. On the picture of a Jewish home, and the influence of a Jewish mother, see Edersheim, u. s.—πιστῆς: Lydia uses the same term of herself in Acts 16:15. Both mother and son were probably converted in St. Paul’s former visit, and there is no reason to suppose with Nösgen that the conversion of the latter was a proof of the growth of the Church in the Apostle’s absence.

Acts 16:2. ἐμαρτυρεῖτο, cf. Acts 6:3, Acts 10:22, Acts 22:12. The good report which may well have been formed to some extent by the aptitude and fitness which Timothy had shown in the Church during St. Paul’s absence may also have helped the Apostle in the selection of his future companion. The union of Lystra and Iconium is quite natural for common intercourse, Ramsay, St. Paul, p. 178. There is no reason to suppose with Rendall that Iconium would be the home of Eunice, as the synagogue and principal Jewish colony were there, see Edersheim, u. s.

Acts 16:3. περιέτεμεν αὐτὸν: the act might be performed by any Israelite; cf. Genesis 17:23 for a similar phrase which may indicate that St. Raul performed the act himself. See also Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, ii., 674; the marriage and the exemption of Timothy from the Mosaic law may be regarded as typical of a relaxation of the exclusive Jewish standard in Lycaonia and Phrygia, and an approximation of the Jew to the pagan population around him, confirmed as it is by the evidence of inscriptions.—διὰ τοὺς Ἰ.: the true answer to the objection raised against Paul’s conduct may be found in his own words, 1 Corinthians 9:20 (cf. 1 Corinthians 7:19). As a missionary he would have to make his way amongst the unbelieving Jews in the parts which were most hostile to him, viz., Antioch and Iconium, on his road into Asia. All along this frequented route of trade he would find colonies of Jews in close communication, and the story of Timothy’s parentage would be known (Ramsay, St. Paul, p. 180). But if so, his own usefulness and that of Timothy would be impaired, since his Jewish countrymen would take offence at seeing him in close intercourse with an uncircumcised person (a reason which McGiffert admits to be conceivable, Apostolic Age, p. 232), and Timothy would have been unacceptable to them, since with a Jewish mother and with a Jewish education he would be regarded as one who refused to adhere to the Jewish rule: “partus sequitur ventrem” (see Wetstein and Nösgen), and to remedy the one fatal flaw which separated him from them: see, however, B. Weiss, Die Briefe Pauli an ., Introd., p. 2, who disagrees with this reason, whilst he lays stress on the other reason mentioned above. On the other hand, both among unbelieving and Christian Jews alike the circumcision of Timothy would not fail to produce a favourable impression. Amongst the former the fact that the convert thus submitted even in manhood to this painful rite would have afforded the clearest evidence that neither he nor his spiritual father despised the seal of the covenant for those who were Jews according to the flesh, whilst the Christian Jews would see in the act a loyal adherence to the Jerusalem decree. It was no question of enforcing circumcision upon Timothy as if it were necessary to salvation; it was simply a question of what was necessary under the special circumstances in which both he and Paul were to seek to gain a hearing for the Gospel on the lines of the Apostolic policy: “to the Jew first, and also to the Greek”; “neque salutis æternæ causa Timotheus circumciditur, sed utilitatis, Blass, cf. Godet, Epître aux Romains, i., pp. 43, 44; Hort, Judaistic Christianity, pp. 85–87; Knabenbauer, in loco. “There is no time in Paul’s life when we should suppose him less likely to circumcise one of his converts,” says McGiffert, u. s., p. 233, but there were converts and converts, and none has pointed out more plainly than McGiffert that the case of Titus and that of Timothy stood on totally different grounds, and none has insisted on this more emphatically than St. Paul himself: ἀλλʼ οὐδὲ Τίτος, Galatians 2:3. The case of Titus was a case of principle: Titus was a Greek, and if St. Paul had yielded, there would have been no need for the Apostle’s further attendance at the conference as the advocate of freedom for the Gentile Churches. In the words Ἕλλην ὤν, Galatians 2:3, there may have been a tacit allusion to the different position of Timothy, whose parentage was different, and not wholly Gentile as in the case of Titus. For a defence of the historical nature of the incident as against the strictures of Baur, Zeller, Overbeck, Weizsäcker, see Wendt, 1898 and 1899, who regards St. Paul’s action as falling under the Apostle’s own principle, 1 Corinthians 9:19.—ὑπῆρχεν: Blass translates fuerat, and sees in the word an intimation that the father was no longer living, otherwise we should have ὑπάρχει, cf. Salmon, Hermathena, xxi., p. 229.

Acts 16:4. A proof of St. Paul’s loyalty to the Jerusalem compact. The decree had not been delivered in Syria and Cilicia (where the letter had been already received), but in Galatia St. Paul delivers it. Wendt regards Acts 16:4-5 as interpolated by the author, who desires to give a universal importance to the decree which had previously been read to a few specified Churches (so too Spitta, Jüngst, Hilgenfeld, Clemen, who refers the verses to his Redactor Antijudaicus). But St. Paul might well feel himself bound to deliver the decree to the Churches evangelised by him before the conference in Jerusalem. Weiss, therefore, is probably right in pointing out that as no mention is again made of any similar proceeding, the action was confined to the Pauline Churches which had been previously founded, Churches which were, as it were, daughter Churches of Antioch.—δόγματα: in the N.T. only in Luke and Paul (cannot be supported in Hebrews 11:23), and only here of the decrees of the Christian Church relative to right living, cf. Ignat., Magnes., xiii., 1; Didaché, xi., 3. In 3Ma 1:3 it is used of the rules and requirements of the Mosaic Law, cf. its use by Philo, see further Plummer on Luke 2:1, and Grimm, sub v. Dr. Hort refers the word back to Acts 15:22, ἔδοξεν, and so κεκρ. to κρίνω Acts 15:19 (cf. Acts 21:25), used by St. James. In these expressions he sees “more than advice,” but “less than a command,” and so here he regards “resolutions” as more nearly expressing the force of this passage, Ecclesia, pp. 81, 82; see however above on Acts 15:19.

Acts 16:5. αἱ μὲν οὖν ἐκκ.: the last time ἐκκλησία is used by St. Luke, except of the Jerusalem Church, and in the peculiar case of the elders at Ephesus, Hort, Ecclesia, p. 95. Rendall, Appendix, μὲν οὖν, p. 165, connects this verse with the following paragraph, cf. Acts 9:31, so apparently Blass in β.—ἐστερεοῦντο: only used in N.T. in Acts, cf. Acts 3:7; Acts 3:16, and only here in this figurative sense, and it is very possible that St. Luke as a medical man might thus employ the verb which he had twice used in its literal sense, cf. similar instances in Hobart’s Introd., p. xxxii.; here as in Acts 6:7, Acts 9:31, we have the outward growth of numbers and the inward in the steadfast holding of the faith, extensive and intensive.

Acts 16:6. διελθόντες δὲ τὴν Φ. καὶ τὴν Γ. χώραν, see critical notes, and also additional note at the end of chap. 18. If we follow R.V. text and omit the second τὴν, and regard both Φ. and Γ. as adjectives with Ramsay and Lightfoot (so Weiss and Wendt, cf. adjective Πισιδίαν, Acts 13:14; but see also Acts 18:23), under the vinculum of the one article we have one district, “the Phrygo-Galatic country,” i.e., ethnically Phrygian, politically Galatian; see also Turner, “Chronology of the N.T.,” Hastings’ B.D., i., 422, and “The Churches of Galatia,” Dr. Gifford, Expositor, July, 1894. But Zahn, Einleitung, i., 134, objects that if Ramsay sees in Acts 16:6 a recapitulation of the journey, and action in Acts 16:4-5, and includes under the term Phrygo-Galatia the places visited in the first missionary journey, we must include under the term not only Iconium and Antioch, but also Derbe and Lystra. But the two latter, according to Acts 14:6, are not Phrygian at all, but Lycaonian. Ramsay, however, sufficiently answers this objection by the distinction which he draws between the phrase before us in Acts 16:6 and the phrase used in Acts 18:23 : τὴν Γαλατικὴν χώραν καὶ Φρυγίαν. In the verse before us reference is made to the country traversed by Paul after he left Lystra, and so we have quite correctly the territory about Iconium and Antioch described as Phrygo-Galatic; but in Acts 18:23 Lystra and Derbe are also included, and therefore we might expect “Lycaono-Galatic and Phrygo-Galatic,” but to avoid this complicated phraseology the writer uses the simple phrase: “the Galatic country,” while Phrygia denotes either Phrygia Galatica or Phrygia Magna, or both, and see Ramsay, Church in the Roman Empire, pp. 77 and 91–93, and Expositor, August, 1898. Dr. Gifford, in his valuable contribution to the controversy between Prof. Ramsay and Dr. Chase, Expositor, July 1894, while rejecting the North-Galatian theory, would not limit the phrase “the Phrygian and Galatian region” to the country about Iconium and Antioch with Ramsay, but advocates an extension of its meaning to the borderlands of Phrygia and Galatia northward of Antioch.—κωλυθέντες: a favourite word in St. Luke, both in Gospel and Acts, six times in each, cf. Acts 8:36, Acts 10:47. How the hindrance was effected we are not told, whether by inward monitions, or by prophetic intimations, or by some circumstances which were regarded as providential warnings: “wherefore they were forbidden he does not say, but that they were forbidden he does say—teaching us to obey and not ask questions,” Chrys., Hom., xxxiv. On the construction of κωλυθ. with διῆλθον (see critical notes) cf. Ramsay, Church in the Roman Empire, p. 89; St. Paul, p. 211; Expositor (Epilogue), April, 1894, and Gifford, u. s., pp. 11 and 19. Both writers point out that the South Galatian theory need not depend upon this construction, whether we render it according to A.V. or R.V., see further Askwith, Epistle to the Galatians, p. 46, 1899.

Acts 16:7. κατὰ τὴν Μ.: “over against Mysia,” R.V., i.e., opposite Mysia, or perhaps, on the outskirts of Mysia, cf. Acts 27:7, and Herod., i., 76, κατὰ Σινώπην, Ramsay, St. Paul, p. 194, Wendt, p. 354 (1888), and Gifford, u. s., p. 13. If we read εἰς for κατά (2), it means that they endeavoured to go out of Asia into the Roman province Bithynia on the north, Ramsay, St. Paul, p. 195.—ἐπείραζον: for a similar use of the verb cf. Acts 9:26, Acts 24:6.—τὸ Πνεῦμα, add Ἰησοῦ, see critical note. Doctrinally, the expression shows that the Spirit may be called the Spirit of Christ, Romans 8:9, or of Jesus, no less than the Spirit of God, Rom., l. c., Matthew 10:20; see Westcott, Historic Faith, p. 106.

Acts 16:8. παρελθόντες: “passing by Mysia”. Ramsay renders “neglecting Mysia,” cf. St. Paul, pp. 194, 196, 197, i.e., passing through it without preaching. McGiffert, p. 235, so Wendt (1899), following Ramsay. Rendall, p. 278, explains “passing along or alongside of Mysia,” i.e., skirting it, the southern portion of it. The words cannot mean passing by without entering. Mysia was part of Asia, but there was no disobedience to the divine command, which, while it forbade them to preach in Mysia did not forbid them to enter it. Troas could not be reached without crossing Mysia; Blass sees this clearly enough (but note his reading): “non prætereunda sed transeunda erat Mysia, ut ad Ægæum mare venirent,” Blass, in loco, cf. also Ramsay, Church in the Roman Empire, p. 76; Wendt (1899), in loco.—Τρωάδα: a town on the sea coast (Alexandria Troas, in honour of Alexander the Great), a Roman colony and an important port for communication between Europe and the north-west of Asia Minor, opposite Tenedos, but not to be identified with New Ilium, which was built on the site of ancient Troy, considerably further north. It was not reckoned as belonging to either of the provinces Asia or Bithynia, cf. also Acts 20:5, 2 Corinthians 2:13, 2 Timothy 4:13 : C. and H., pp. 215 and 544, Renan, St. Paul, p. 128, Zöckler, in loco.