Romans 16:7,8 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Salute Andronicus and Junia Or, Junias rather, it being evidently the name of a man, as appears from the apostle's terming them both his kinsmen And saying, that they were of note among the apostles. My fellow-prisoners That is, imprisoned for the gospel as I was. At the time when this epistle was written, Paul had been in prison often, 2 Corinthians 11:23. On some of these occasions, the persons here named had been imprisoned with him; but where or when that happened, is not known. Who also were in Christ before me Converted to the faith of Christ before I was. From these two persons being Christians before Paul, joined with their being of note among the apostles, Origen infers that they were of the number of the seventy disciples: but that is quite uncertain. Their being called the apostle's kinsmen, does not necessarily imply that they were his relations: he might term them so, as well as several others, mentioned in this chapter, merely because they were of the same nation with himself. The names, however, of many here saluted, show them to have been Greeks, or of Greek extraction. We may therefore conjecture, that they had formerly settled themselves at Rome, for the sake of commerce, or of exercising their particular trades; but, being afterward banished, by the Emperor Claudius, under the denomination of Jews, they had retired, some of them into Greece, others into the Lesser Asia, and others into Judea, where, it is supposed, they became known to the apostle in the course of his travels through these countries. These, with many others, returned to Rome in consequence of the death of Claudius, and re-established the church in its former lustre. See on chap. Romans 1:7-8.