Handelingen 24:5

5 Want wij hebben dezen man bevonden te zijn een pest, en een, die oproer verwekt onder al de Joden, door de ganse wereld, en een oppersten voorstander van de sekte der Nazarenen.

Handelingen 24:5 Meaning and Commentary

Acts 24:5

For we have found this man a pestilent fellow
Pointing to Paul, the prisoner at the bar; the word here used signifies the "pest" or "plague" itself; and it was usual with orators among the Romans, when they would represent a man as a very wicked man, as dangerous to the state, and unworthy to live in it, to call him the pest of the city, or of the country, or of the empire, as may be observed in several places in Cicero's Orations.

And a mover of sedition among all the Jews throughout the world:
sedition was severely punished by the Romans, being what they carefully watched and guarded against, and was what the Jews were supposed to be very prone unto; and Tertullus would suggest, that the several riots, and tumults, and seditions, fomented by the Jews, in the several parts of the Roman empire, here called the world, were occasioned by the apostle: the crime charged upon him is greatly aggravated, as that not only he was guilty of sedition, but that he was the mover of it, and that he stirred up all the Jews to it, and that in every part of the world, or empire, than which nothing was more false; the Jews often raised up a mob against him, but he never rioted them, and much less moved them against the Roman government: and to this charge he adds,

and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes;
not Nazarites, as Calvin seems to understand the passage; for these were men of great repute among the Jews, and for Paul to be at the head of them would never be brought against him as a charge: but Nazarenes, that is, Christians, so called by way of contempt and reproach, from Jesus of Nazareth; which name and sect being contemptible among the Romans, as well as Jews, are here mentioned to make the apostle more odious.

Handelingen 24:5 In-Context

3 Dat wij grote vrede door u bekomen, en dat vele loffelijke diensten deze volke geschieden door uw voorzichtigheid, machtigste Felix, nemen wij ganselijk en overal met alle dankbaarheid aan.

4 Maar opdat ik u niet lang ophoude, ik bid u, dat gij ons, naar uw bescheidenheid, kortelijk hoort.

5 Want wij hebben dezen man bevonden te zijn een pest, en een, die oproer verwekt onder al de Joden, door de ganse wereld, en een oppersten voorstander van de sekte der Nazarenen.

6 Die ook gepoogd heeft den tempel te ontheiligen, welken wij ook gegrepen hebben, en naar onze wet hebben willen oordelen.

7 Maar Lysias, de overste, daarover komende, heeft hem met groot geweld uit onze handen weggebracht;