Acts 9:31 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Then had the churches The whole body of Christian believers, with all their congregations, wherever they were dispersed; throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria, rest Ειρηνην, peace; their bitterest persecutor being converted. So some. But the peace they now enjoyed, Dr. Doddridge, with many others, thinks, “is by no means to be ascribed merely or chiefly to Saul's conversion, who, though a great zealot, was but one young man, and whose personal danger proves the persecution, in some measure, to have continued, at least, three years after it. The period spoken of, therefore, seems to be that which commenced at, or quickly after, his setting out for Cilicia; and, as Dr. Lardner observes, this repose of the Christians might be occasioned by the general alarm which was given to the Jews, when Petronius, by the order of Caligula, attempted to bring the statue of that emperor among them, and set it up in the holy of holies; a horrid profanation, which the whole people deprecated with the greatest concern, in the most solicitous and affectionate manner. How long this peace, or rest, continued, we do not certainly know: probably till Herod interrupted it, as we shall see, chap. 12. And were edified In faith and holiness. The word οικοδομουμεναι, thus rendered, is a figurative expression, properly a term of architecture, signifying the erecting or constructing the whole superstructure of a building upon a foundation. In this place it must signify, by analogy, that the churches were further instructed in the great truths of the gospel, and advanced in all the branches of piety and virtue; and walking That is, speaking and acting; in the fear of the Lord That is, under the influence of that principle; and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost In the consolations afforded by his agency; were multiplied By an accession of new members, whereby the damage sustained in the late persecution was abundantly repaired.