Acts 28:10
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Who also honoured us with many honours
Not with divine honours, with religious adorations, as if they had been so many deities; for these they would not have received, nor have recorded them, to the commendation of the inhabitants; but civil honours, expressions of respect and gratitude; and particularly gifts and presents, large and valuable, in which sense the phrase is used by Jewish writers; so upon those words in ( Judges 13:17 ) . "What is thy name, that when the sayings come to pass, we may do thee honour?" they make this paraphrase F26,
``Manoah said to him (the angel), tell me thy name, that I may inquire where to find thee, when thy prophecy is fulfilled, and give thee (Nrwd) , "a gift", (hxnm ala Kwndbkw) (Nyaw) , "for there is no honour but a present", or "offering"; or wherever this phrase is used, it signifies nothing else but a gift, as it is said, ( Numbers 22:17 ) . "For honouring I will honour thee":''that is, with money and gifts, as Balaam's answer in the next verse shows, and so the Jewish commentators interpret it F1; (See Gill on 1 Timothy 5:17);
And when we departed;
from the island, which was not till three months from their first coming ashore:
they laded [us] with such things as were necessary;
that is, for the voyage: they provided a proper supply of food for them, which they put into the strip, for their use in their voyage; by which they expressed their gratitude for the favours they received from Paul; for whose sake not only his company, but the whole ship's company fared the better: and very likely many of them were converted under the apostle's ministry; for it can hardly be thought that the apostle should be on this island three months, as he was, and not preach the Gospel to the inhabitants of it, in which he always met with success, more or less; and the great respect shown him at his departure seems to confirm this; though we meet with no account of any church, or churches, or preachers of the word in this place, in ecclesiastical history, until the "sixth" century, when mention is made of a bishop of the island of Melita F2; indeed in the "fourth" century, Optatus Milevitanus is said by some, through mistake; to be bishop of Melita, when he was bishop of Milevis, a city in Africa upon the continent; and, through a like mistake, this island is said to be famous for a council held in it under Pope Innocent, against Pelagius, in the beginning of the "fifth" century; when the council was held at the above place Milevis, and not at Melita, from whence it was called the Milevitan council.
F26 Bemidbar Rabba, sect. 10. fol. 199. 1. Vid. Laniado in Judg. xvii. 13.
F1 Jarchi & Aben Ezra in loc.
F2 Magdeburg. Eccl. Hist. cent. 6. c. 2. p. 5.