Acts 5:13 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

Of the rest. — We are left to conjecture who these were who are contrasted with the Apostles on the one side and with the people on the other. Does it mean that the Apostles stood aloof in an isolated majesty, and so that none of the other disciples dared associate himself with them? or is this St. Luke’s way of speaking of the Pharisees and other teachers, who also resorted to the portico, but, as in the days of our Lord’s ministry (John 7:48; John 12:42), had not the courage to attach themselves to those with whom they really sympathised? The latter view seems every way the more probable, ‘and so the passage stands parallel with those which tell us how the people heard our Lord gladly and “came early to hear him” (Luke 21:38).