Matthew Henry on Acts 25:1-12
We commonly say, "New lords, new laws, new customs;" but here was a new governor, and yet Paul had the same treatment from him that he had from the former, and no better. Festus, like Felix, is not so just to him as he should have been, for he does not release him; and yet not so unjust to him as the Jews would have had him to be, for he will not condemn him to die, nor expose him to their rage. Here is,
I. The pressing application which the high priest and other Jews used with the governor to persuade him to abandon Paul; for to send him to Jerusalem was in effect to abandon him. 1. See how speedy they were in their applications to Festus concerning Paul. As soon as ever he had come into th…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Acts 25:5
Let them . . . which among you are able, go down--"your leading men."
Adam Clarke on Acts 25:6
When he had tarried - more than ten days - The strangeness of this mode of expression suggests the thought that our printed text is not quite correct in this place; and this suspicion is confirmed by an examination of MSS. and versions: ἡμερας ου πλειους οκτω η δεκα, Not more than Eight Or ten days, is the reading of ABC, several others of great respectability, with the Coptic, Armenian, and Vulgate. Griesbach admits this reading into the text: and of it Professor White says, Lectio indubie genuina: "This is doubtless the genuine reading."
John Gill on Acts 25:6
And when he had tarried among them more than ten days,.... The Alexandrian copy, and three of Beza's copies, and some others, and the Vulgate Latin version read, "no more than eight or ten days"; and the Syriac and Ethiopic versions leave out the phrase "no more", and read "when he had stayed there", as the former; that is, at Jerusalem; or "when he had remained among them", as the latter; the Jews, chief priests, and others, "eight or ten days"; the historian, not being certain to a day, expresses himself in this manner:
he went down to Caesarea; from whence he came, and where Paul was:
and the next day sitting in the judgment seat; the day after he was come to Caesarea, he sat upon the b…
