Acts 13:4 - Exposition

Went down to for departed unto, A.V. ( κατῆλθον ). Seleucia was the sea-port of Antioch, about sixteen miles from it, and five miles north of the mouth of the Orontes. It was a free city by a grant from Pompey. It is now in ruins, but "the masonry of the once magnificent port of Seleucia is in so good a state that" it might be repaired and cleared out "for about £31,000". They sailed to Cyprus. Barnabas, no doubt, took the lead, and was naturally drawn to his native island of Cyprus—within a hundred miles of Seleucia, and, on a clear day, visible from it. The number of Jews in the island, and the partial evangelization of it which had already taken place ( Acts 11:19 , Acts 11:20 ), and which promised them assistance and support, no doubt further influenced them. John Mark went with them, as we learn from the fifth and thirteenth verses, and possibly other brethren as deacons and ministers (see next note). They sailed straight to Salamis, "a convenient and capacious harbor, " in the center of the eastern end of the island, and the principal or one of the principal towns. It had a large population of Jews. It was destroyed in the reign of Trajan, in consequence of a terrible insurrection of the Jews, in which they massacred 240,000 of the Gentile population. No Jew was ever after allowed to land in Cyprus.