And when he had given him licence
To speak to the people, which he could not well deny him, after he had so freely declared who he was, and in so courteous a manner addressed him, and asked leave of him:
Paul stood on the stairs;
on the steps of the ascent to the castle, on the top of them:
and beckoned with the hand unto the people;
to desire silence, which he might be able to do, notwithstanding his chains; for his being bound with a chain to a soldier, did not hinder the moving and lifting up of his hand:
and when there was made a great silence;
either through the authority of the captain, who might command it, or through the desire of the people, to hear what he could say for himself:
he spake unto them in the Hebrew tongue;
which the people he spoke to best understood, and was his own mother tongue; the Alexandrian copy reads, "in his own dialect"; this was not pure Hebrew that was spoke in common in those times, but the Syro-Chaldean language:
saying;
as in the following chapter.