And this she did many days
As the apostle and his company passed to and from the oratory, being for that time at Lydia's house; she followed them, and repeated the above words. This she was suffered to do, time after time; not that the apostle and his friends wanted such a testimony, or that it was of any use to them; but that the expulsion of the evil spirit might be more manliest, and more taken notice of: but Paul being grieved;
at the unhappy condition the maid was in, being possessed with such a spirit: and that the people were so imposed upon and deluded by it; and that it should be thought that there was any combination and agreement between that and him: turned;
himself to her, who was behind him, she following him, as is said in the preceding verse; this is left out in the Syriac version: and said to the spirit;
or to that spirit, as the same version renders it; to the spirit of Python, or Apollo, or of divination, that was in the maid; the Ethiopic version reads, "and he said", "in", or "by the Holy Spirit"; being under a more than ordinary influence and impulse of his; but not the spirit by which he spake, but the spirit to which he spake, is here meant: I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her, and
he came out the same hour;
this is an instance of that power which Christ gave to his apostles to cast out devils in his name, ( Matthew 10:1 ) ( Mark 16:17 )