Acts 19:38 - Exposition

If therefore for wherefore if, A.V. ; that for which, A.V. ; the courts are for the law is, A.V.; proconsuls for deputies, A.V.; accuse for implead, A.V. Against any man . Mark the skill with which the town-clerk passes from the concrete to the abstract, and avoids the mention of Paul's name. The courts are open ; ἀγοραῖοι (or ἀγόραιοι ) ἄγονται . Some supply the word σύνοδοι , and make the sense "judicial assemblies,'' "sessions," coming round at proper fixed intervals. But the verb ἄγονται , more naturally suggests ἡμέραι , as Bengel says ( ἄγειν γενέσια τὰς ἡμέρας τῆς σκηνοπηγίας : ὀλύμπια : γενέθλιον , etc.), and then the meaning is, " The regular court-days are kept, when the proconsul attends to try causes;" there is no need to have an irregular trial. So Suidas explains it, ἡμέρα ἐνᾗ ἡ ἀγορὰ . There are proconsuls . Bengel, with whom Meyer agrees, thinks the plural denotes the unbroken succession of proconsuls. But Lewin thinks it may mark the exact time of these transactions as being immediately after the poisoning of the Proconsul Junius Silanus by order of Agrippina, when the two procurators, Celer and AE lius, exercised the proconsular power till the appointment of another proconsul, according to a law of Claudius to that effect. Others have other explanations.