Acts 10:6

6 he lodges with one Simon a tanner, whose house is by the sea side; he shall tell thee what it behooves thee to do.

Acts 10:6 Meaning and Commentary

Acts 10:6

He lodgeth with one Simon a tanner,
&c] Simon the tanner was his host; this man very probably was a good man, and one that lodged strangers; of his trade, (See Gill on Acts 9:43)

whose house is by the sea side;
Joppa was a sea port, ( 2 Chronicles 2:16 ) ( Jonah 1:3 ) hence we read of (wpyd amy) , "the sea of Joppa" F24; and also of (wpy lv hnyml) , "the port of Joppa" F25; now Simon's house was in the outer part of the city, and by the sea side, as well for convenience for his business, as because such trades might not be exercised within a city; being nauseous and disagreeable, because of their skins and manner of dressing them, and the dead carcasses from whence they often took them off; hence that rule of the Jews F26,

``they place dead carcasses, graves, (yqorwbh taw) , "and a tanner's workshop", (in which he dresses his skins,) fifty cubits from the city; nor do they make a tanner's workshop, but at the eastern part of the city. R. Abika says, it may be made at every part excepting the west.''

The reason of that, as given by the F1 commentators, is, because prayer was made towards the west, where the temple stood, and the divine presence was. The Ethiopic version very wrongly renders it, "and the house of Cornelius is near the sea"; for not his, but Simon's is meant:

he shall tell thee what thou oughtest to do;
he was to tell him words, or to deliver doctrines to him, by which he and his family would be better instructed in the way of salvation, and arrive to a greater degree of knowledge of Christ, and faith in him, and be brought to a submission to his commands and ordinances; see ( Acts 10:22 Acts 10:32 ) ( 11:14 ) , this clause is left out in the Alexandrian copy, and in some others, and in the Syriac and Arabic versions.


FOOTNOTES:

F24 Ezra iii. 7. Targum in 2 Chron. ii. 16.
F25 T. Hieros. Yoma, fol. 41. 1. Joseph. Antiqu. l. 11. c. 4. sect. 1. & 13. 9. 1 Maccab. xiv. 5. 1. Esdr. v. 55.
F26 Misn. Bava Bathra, c. 2. sect. 9.
F1 Maimou. & Bartenora in ib.

Acts 10:6 In-Context

4 And when he looked on him, he was afraid and said, What is it, Lord? And he said unto him, Thy prayers and thine alms {lit. thine acts of mercy} are come up for a memorial before God.
5 And now send men to Joppa and call for one Simon, whose surname is Peter;
6 he lodges with one Simon a tanner, whose house is by the sea side; he shall tell thee what it behooves thee to do.
7 And when the angel who spoke unto Cornelius was departed, he called two of his household servants and a devout soldier of those that waited on him continually;
8 and when he had declared all these things unto them, he sent them to Joppa.
The Jubilee Bible (from the Scriptures of the Reformation), edited by Russell M. Stendal, Copyright © 2000, 2001, 2010