Successes in Cyprus.
Acts 13:4. went down: the usual phrase in connexion with a seaport. Seleucia is the port of Antioch, about sixteen miles from it.
Acts 13:5. Salamis is the eastern port of Cyprus. in the synagogues: this was the natural procedure for a Jew with a message bearing on the faith and on the salvation of his race. Ac. develops later a theory as to Paul's practice in addressing Jew and Gentile; the fact as told here may be accepted. What was Mark's function as their attendant? The synagogue was fully supplied with officials, and no services elsewhere are spoken of.
Acts 13:6. Paphos is at the W. end of the island, and there Paul, like Peter on his first mission among Gentiles (Acts 8:18-24), has an encounter with a sorcerer. He has attached himself to the proconsul Sergius Paulus (whose name has been found on an inscription in Cyprus), and tries to prejudice him against Paul's preaching. A proconsul might be interested in the various cults and prophets of the population.
Acts 13:9. The apostle receives the name Paul, by which he is afterwards known, but the statement implies that he had that name already, and it is not necessary to connect it with that of the proconsul. He was born a Roman citizen, and in his mission among the Gentiles it was suitable that he should use his Roman name.
Acts 13:10 f. The denunciation and the threats may be traced in OT (e.g., Hosea 14:9, Exodus 9, 1 Samuel 5:5-7); Paul himself had been struck with blindness when opposing the Lord, and had to be led. The threat is at once fulfilled; the achlys or mist which spread over his eyes is a term used by medical writers of cataract or of the invasion of the eye by matter from a neighbouring swelling (Hobart, p. 44). It is better not to define the term too closely here. The faith of the proconsul is attributed to what he has seen, not what he has heard (cf. Acts 4:16, Acts 8:13). The teaching of the Lord appears to him a teaching with power (Mark 1:27), being accompanied by such wonders.