Acts 10:9,10 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

On the morrow, as they went For they set out too late to reach the place that night; Peter went up upon the house-top to pray It has often been observed, in the course of these notes, that the houses in Judea had flat roofs, on which people walked for the sake of taking the air, and where they conversed, meditated, and prayed. About the sixth hour Besides the two stated hours of prayer, at the time of the morning and evening sacrifice the more devout among the Jews were used to set apart a third, and to retire for prayer at noon. Thus David, (Psalms 55:17,) Evening and morning and at noon will I pray. And Daniel also kneeled upon his knees three times a day and prayed. Whether Peter was induced by this, or by some other reason, to retire for prayer at this time, it seems at least to have been customary, in the first ages of the Christian Church, to offer up their daily prayers at the third, the sixth, and the ninth hour. And he became very hungry At the usual meal-time; or rather, his hunger now was supernatural, to prepare him for the trance and vision here mentioned; for the symbols in these extraordinary discoveries were generally suited to the state of the natural faculties. And he would have eaten Greek, ηθελε γευσασθαι, would have taken some refreshment; but while they made ready, he fell into a trance Or ecstasy, as the word, εκστασις, signifies; namely, such a rapture of mind as gives the person who falls into it a look of astonishment, and renders him insensible of the external objects around him, while, in the mean time, his imagination is agitated in an extraordinary manner with some striking scenes which pass before it, and take up all his attention. In this ecstasy of Peter, a very remarkable and instructive vision was presented to him, by which the Lord prepared him for the service to which he was immediately to be called; but to which, without some such discovery of the divine will as was now made to him, he would have had an insuperable objection.