Acts 13:19,20 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

And when he had destroyed seven nations Enumerated Deuteronomy 7:1; in the land of Chanaan Where they had been long settled, and had erected many kingdoms, defended by fortifications of great strength, as well as by numerous forces of horse and foot; he divided their land Even the whole country; to them by lot Or, for an inheritance, as κατεκληρονομησεν αυτοις την γην, seems rather to signify, and supported them in it for many generations. After that he gave them judges By whose heroic interposition he delivered them from those repeated oppressions and miseries which their frequent revolts to idolatry had brought upon them; until Samuel the prophet Who was the last of these extraordinary leaders and magistrates. About the space of four hundred and fifty years As the course of the sacred history will by no means permit us to imagine that the judges, in their succession, continued four hundred and fifty years after the settlement of Israel in Canaan, it being stated, (1 Kings 6:1,) that Solomon began to build the temple in the four hundred and eightieth year after they came out of Egypt; therefore, Sir Norton Knatchbull (with whom Bengelius, Doddridge, and many other learned men agree) is of opinion, that the apostle is not to be understood as signifying, “how long God gave them judges, but when he gave them.” He therefore refers the first words of this verse, και μετα ταυτα ως ετεσι τετρακοσιοις και πεντηκοντα, to the words going before, (Acts 13:17,) that is, to the time when the God of the children of Israel chose their fathers: and points and renders them thus: And afterward, about four hundred and fifty years, or, and about four hundred and fifty years afterward, he gave them judges, &c.; according to which sense, he observes, the old Latin and the Ethiopic interpreters read the passage; adding, (Annot. on some difficult Texts in the New Testament, p. 131,) “now this time, wherein God may properly be said to have chosen their fathers, about four hundred and fifty years before he gave them judges, is by them computed from the birth of Isaac, in whom God may properly be said to have chosen their fathers; for in his family the covenant was to rest. And, to make this computation evident: From the birth of Isaac to the birth of Jacob, are sixty years; from thence to their going into Egypt, one hundred and thirty; from thence to their coming out, two hundred and ten; from thence to their entrance into the land of Canaan, forty; and from thence to the division of the land, the time wherein it had rest, (about which time, it is probable, they began to settle their government by judges,) seven years; which, altogether, make up four hundred and forty-seven. And if it should be reckoned from the year before, when God established his covenant between himself and Abraham, and all his seed after him, (Genesis 17:19,) then it will be four hundred and forty-eight years, which comes one nearer to our number of four hundred and fifty; and answers sufficiently the apostle's manner of expression, ως, about four hundred and fifty years.”