Acts 10:4 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

He was afraid; the angel appeared in so great splendour: all admiration hath some fear with it. And said, "What is it, Lord?" This is equivalent to, "What wilt thou have me to do?" and shows that Cornelius was prepared to hear the message. Thy prayers and thine alms; prayer and alms are joined together in our Saviour's discourse concerning them, Matthew 6:1-7 and in the apostle's order about them, 1 Corinthians 16:1: alms are our sacrifices now under the gospel, Philippians 4:18 Hebrews 13:16. Are come up for a memorial before God; an allusion to the offering up of incense under the law; the smoke of the incense did ascend, and so David desires that his prayers might ascend toward God, Psalms 141:2: thus, under the gospel, prayers are resembled to incense, Revelation 8:3. That prayers are said to come up for a memorial, is but the pursuance of the same metaphor; for, Leviticus 2:2, the frankincense, &c. was the memorial there commanded to be burned; and all this only to represent unto us how well pleasing the prayers of his people are unto God through Christ, and that God keeps in remembrance all those things they thus desire of him, and in his time and measure (which are the best circumstances) bestows all upon them: but let not prayers and alms, which God here hath put together, be put asunder, and in due time we shall reap.