Acts 19:35

35. Townclerk The keeper of the city records city recorder. Coins exist, associating the title with that of the proconsul, and so indicating a high rank. The townclerk here performs the duties of a modern mayor.

He said The tact, moderation, and good sense of the townclerk’s speech have been much applauded since its delivery. But perhaps his administration would have been more commendable had his interference taken place two or three hours earlier.

Worshipper Literally, temple-sweeper, expressing a servile office. But so great a goddess was Artemis that it was a proud prerogative for Ephesus, among the cities of Asia, to be her humble servitor, and wear the title as a badge of honour.

Fell down from Jupiter Literally, the Jove-fallen. Pliny says that there was a modern image of Artemis at Ephesus which had outlasted seven rebuildings of the temple. The pretence of having fallen from heaven was made in favour of other idols of antiquity, as the Palladium of Troy, the ancile at Rome, and the image of Cybele at Pessinus. The notion may have arisen from the descent of meteoric stones; but in fact this image of Artemis seems to have been of wood. It bore more resemblance to the rude images of Hindooism than to Greek statuary, and was probably a remnant of an old eastern idolatry found by the Greeks when they colonized Ionia.