Acts 21:5

5 When our days there were over, we left to continue our journey, while all of them, with their wives and children, escorted us out of the city. After kneeling down on the beach to pray,

Acts 21:5 Meaning and Commentary

Acts 21:5

And when we had accomplished those days
The seven days before mentioned:

we departed and went our way;
from their quarters where they lodged, or from some one house of the disciples, where they met, and had conversed together:

and they all brought us on our way, with wives and children, till we
were out of the city;
that is, the disciples, even all of them that dwelt in that city, with their whole families, their wives and children, accompanied the apostle and those that were with him, through the streets of the city of Tyre, till they came out of it to the shore, where lay the ship they were to go aboard; and which was a mark of their affection and respect to the apostle, as well as a token of their public spirit, that they were not ashamed of Christ and his ministers, nor of their profession of the Gospel:

and we kneeled down on the shore and prayed;
which was agreeably to the custom of the Jews, who had, as Tertullian observes F23, their "orationes litterales", their prayers at the sea shore; (See Gill on Acts 16:13).


FOOTNOTES:

F23 Ad nationes, l. 1. c. 13.

Acts 21:5 In-Context

3 After we sighted Cyprus, leaving it on the left, we sailed on to Syria and arrived at Tyre, because the ship was to unload its cargo there.
4 So we found some disciples and stayed there seven days. They said to Paul through the Spirit not to go to Jerusalem.
5 When our days there were over, we left to continue our journey, while all of them, with their wives and children, escorted us out of the city. After kneeling down on the beach to pray,
6 we said good-bye to one another. Then we boarded the ship, and they returned home.
7 When we completed our voyage from Tyre, we reached Ptolemais, where we greeted the brothers and stayed with them one day.
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