3rd Missionary Trip - Lorin

Paul not to go on to Jerusalem, as these in Tyre were doing. But these dangers were not brand new information
to Paul, since he had already mentioned them to the Ephesian leaders at Miletus (20:22-23):
22 Καὶ νῦν ἰδοὺ δεδεμένος ἐγὼ τῷ πνεύματι πορεύομαι εἰς Ἰερουσαλὴμ τὰ ἐν αὐτῇ συναντήσοντά μοι μὴ εἰδώς,
23 πλὴν ὅτι τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον κατὰ πόλιν διαμαρτύρεταί μοι λέγον ὅτι δεσμὰ καὶ θλίψεις με μένουσιν.
22 And now, as a captive to the Spirit,c I am on my way to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there,
23 except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and persecutions are waiting for me.
Probably the best understanding of Luke’s statement is that these believers at Tyre were expressing
deep, genuine concern for Paul’s safety out of sincere conviction of their advice coming from God through His
Spirit. But the tension between 21:4 with 20:22 and 21:10-13 has bothered commentators from early times down
to the present, and cannot be fully explained without distorting at least one of these texts.
This additional farewell by Paul to the believers at Tyre was emotionally packed just as the one with the
Ephesian leaders had been (21:5-6):
5 ὅτε δὲ ἐγένετο ἡμᾶς ἐξαρτίσαι τὰς ἡμέρας, ἐξελθόντες ἐπορευόμεθα προπεμπόντων ἡμᾶς πάντων σὺν γυναιξὶν
καὶ τέκνοις ἕως ἔξω τῆς πόλεως, καὶ θέντες τὰ γόνατα ἐπὶ τὸν αἰγιαλὸν προσευξάμενοι 6 ἀπησπασάμεθα ἀλλήλους
καὶ ἀνέβημεν εἰς τὸ πλοῖον, ἐκεῖνοι δὲ ὑπέστρεψαν εἰς τὰ ἴδια.
5 When our days there were ended, we left and proceeded on our journey; and all of them, with wives and children,
escorted us outside the city. There we knelt down on the beach and prayed 6 and said farewell to one another.
Then we went on board the ship, and they returned home.
This single, rather long sentence in the Greek is built off of four short core statements: we went on our
way, said farewell, boarded the ship, and they returned home. Note that since the departure from Miletus (cf.
21:1), the ‘we section’ of Acts has resurfaced signaling Luke’s presence in the traveling group. He has been a
part of the group clearly since Philippi, and probably prior to that on this trip.
After a week, it was time for the group to move on to the next stop, and Luke uses a rather unusual but
classical Greek manner of expressing the need to close out the visit and begin traveling again: ὅτε δὲ ἐγένετο
ἡμᾶς ἐξαρτίσαι τὰς ἡμέρας. 272 He anchors this temporal clause to the brief expression ἐξελθόντες ἐπορευόμεθα,
after having departed we began our journey. But before leaving good-byes needed to be said, which Luke also ties
onto this verb ἐπορευόμεθα: προπεμπόντων ἡμᾶς πάντων σὺν γυναιξὶν καὶ τέκνοις ἕως ἔξω τῆς πόλεως, escorting
us all of them with wives and children to outside the city. What a sight that must have been. This group of believers
including the entire family walked along with Paul and his
companions to a point outside the city. The verb προπέμπω
literally means to send someone off on a trip, and is thus used
by Luke with that meaning in 15:3; 20:38; and 21:5 (3 of the 9
NT uses). Five of the remaining uses are in Paul’s letters with
the additional implication of outfitting one with supplies in sending
them on a trip: 1 Cor. 16:6, 11; 2 Cor. 1:16; Rom. 15:24. Also
3 John 6 follows this same meaning.
The farewell took on the same pattern as it had at Miletus:
καὶ θέντες τὰ γόνατα ἐπὶ τὸν αἰγιαλὸν προσευξάμενοι
ἀπησπασάμεθα ἀλλήλους καὶ ἀνέβημεν εἰς τὸ πλοῖον, ἐκεῖνοι
δὲ ὑπέστρεψαν εἰς τὰ ἴδια, There we knelt down on the beach and
prayed and said farewell to one another. Then we went on board the
ship, and they returned home. On the beach 273 not far from where
the ship was docked the group knelt down and prayed to God. Most likely a prayer similar to the one at Miletus
(cf. 20:36). What Luke had described as weeping, hugging, and kissing one another at Miletus (cf. 20:37-38),
he now summs up with the verb ἀπασπάζομαι (the only use of this verb in the NT, although a simplier form
ἀσπασάμενος is used in 20:1 when Paul left Ephesus). The group of missionaries boaded their ship and the local
272 “ἐξαρτίσαι of time, where πληρῶσαι might have been expected, ‘sonst nicht belegt’ (Preuschen 125). LS 587 gives the meaning,
but with no other examples (there are examples of finishing buildings and books). BA 553 quote Hippocrates, Epidemiae 2:180,
ἀπαρτίζειν τὴν ὀκτάμηνον; see 2:7, ὀκταμήνῳ. τὰς ἡμέρας are the seven days of v. 4.” [C. K. Barrett, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary
on the Acts of the Apostles, International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2004), 991.]
273 “αἰγιαλός ‘describes correctly the smooth beach at Tyre, as opposed to ἀκτή, used of a rocky shore’ (Hemer 125). Stählin
(273) is more precise: the beach to the south of the mole built by Alexander the Great to connect the island of Tyre with the mainland.
Hanson (208): ‘… the beach at Tyre can still be identified. Is not this the vivid touch of an eye-witness?’ Possibly; but not necessarily.”
[C. K. Barrett, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh: T&T
Clark, 2004), 991.]
Page 475