After the reading of the law and the prophets. — The order of the Sabbath lessons was fixed as by a kind of calendar, the Law — i.e., the Pentateuch — being divided into fifty-three or fifty-four paraschioth, or sections. These, probably, came into use soon after the return from Babylon. To these were afterwards added special lessons, known technically as the Haphtaroth, from the prophets. We are enabled, by two curious coincidences, to fix, with very little uncertainty, the precise Sabbath on which the mission-work at Antioch opened. The opening words of St. Paul refer to Deuteronomy 1:31 (see Note on Acts 13:18) and this was the lesson for the forty-fourth Sabbath in the year, which fell in July or August; the corresponding second lesson from the prophets being Isaiah 1:1-27, from which he also quotes. He starts, as was natural, from what the people had just been listening to, as the text of his discourse.
The rulers of the synagogue sent unto them... — The elders apparently saw strangers taking the position of teachers, probably in the garb of Rabbis, and it belonged to their office to offer such persons an opportunity of addressing the people.