Acts 1:12

12. Mount called Olivet Luke’s language here implies that Theophilus was unfamiliar with the locality.

A sabbath day’s journey About half a furlong less than a mile.

“It would appear from the Talmudics that it was no violation of the sabbath day, while in the desert, to traverse the whole camp, which is believed to have been twelve miles square; nor was it unlawful to walk through a city on that holy day, no matter how extensive it might be. But after the erection of the temple, sabbath locomotion seems to have been greatly circumscribed without the city. No one was permitted to go beyond the limits of the suburbs of the city on that sacred day a distance of one mile and this seems to have regulated a sabbath day’s journey. Some have estimated it as high as two miles, and some, by way of accommodation, as low as seven, or seven and a half furlongs; but there is no just reason to question the correctness of the ordinary estimate. The Jewish mile was composed of one thousand paces of five feet, or one thousand six hundred and sixty-six yards, and was therefore nearly one hundred yards shorter than our mile.” Barclay’s City of the Great King, p. 69.

Why does Luke mention that it was a sabbath day’s journey? Perhaps to identify the locality. But Chrysostom thinks because it was sabbath day, and Alford adds, perhaps in order to obviate the offence taken at its being a longer walk on that day.