Matthew Henry on Acts 9:36–end
Here we have another miracle wrought by Peter, for the confirming of the gospel, and which exceeded the former - the raising of Tabitha to life when she had been for some time dead. Here is,
I. The life, and death, and character of Tabitha, on whom this miracle was wrought, Act 9:36, Act 9:37. 1. She lived at Joppa, a sea-port town in the tribe of Dan, where Jonah took shipping to go to Tarshish, now called Japho. 2. Her name was Tabitha, a Hebrew name, the Greek for which is Dorcas, both signifying a doe, or hind, or deer, a pleasant creature. Naphtali is compared to a hind let loose, giving goodly words; and the wife to the kind and tender husband is as the loving hind, and as the pleasant…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Acts 9:41
he gave her his hand, and lifted her up--as his Lord had done to his own mother-in-law (Mar 1:31).
Adam Clarke on Acts 9:42
Many believed in the Lord - That is, in Christ Jesus, in whose name and through whose power they understood this miracle to be wrought. This miracle, as well as that at Lydda, was not only the means of strengthening the faith of the disciples, and gaining credit to the cause of Christianity, but also of bringing many sincere converts to the Lord, so that the Church was thereby both builded up and multiplied.
John Gill on Acts 9:42
And it was known throughout all Joppa,.... The report of such a miracle, and wrought upon a person of note, was soon spread all over the place, which was very large, for it was a city, as it is called, Acts 11:5, and it had, as Josephus (q) says, villages and little towns or cities round about it; all which might go by the name of Joppa, and throughout which the fame of this miracle might pass:
and many believed in the Lord; in the Lord Jesus Christ, whom Peter preached, and the saints in Joppa professed, and in whose name, and by whose power, this miracle was done.
(q) De Bello Jud. l. 3. c. 8. sect. 4.
