Act 13:44-45, 50 | PNT | STEP | The next sabbath came almost the whole city . The sermon of the Sabbath before, the labors of Paul and Barnabas during the week, and the talk aroused, filled the city with intense interest.

Acts 13:44-45

The next sabbath came almost the whole city. The sermon of the Sabbath before, the labors of Paul and Barnabas during the week, and the talk aroused, filled the city with intense interest. When the Jews saw the multitudes. The vast concourse, in large part Gentiles, anxious to hear of the "ensign to whom the Gentiles shall seek" (Isa 11:10), aroused Jewish bigotry. Nothing ever stirred the Jews of either Palestine or of Gentile countries to such hatred as the declaration that Christ is a Savior of the Gentiles as well as the Jews. See Ac 22:21.

Contradicting and blaspheming. Contradicting the application of the prophecies to Jesus, which Paul made in his address; blaspheming by denying and speaking contemptuously of the Son of God.

Acts 13:50

The Jews stirred up the devout and honourable women. Gentile women of high rank ("devout women of honourable estate", Revised Version), who had learned to revere the One God (see PNT Ac 10:2). Strabo, a Roman writer, declares that the women in this part of Asia exerted a powerful influence.

And the chief men. Probably the husbands of these women.

Raised persecution. There was probably no appeal to the magistrates, who were Romans (Antioch of Pisidia was a Roman colony), but they excited tumultuous opposition. The missionaries retired for the time, because their work was interrupted. They were not exiled, for they returned afterward (Ac 14:21).