Acts 3:11 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Held Peter and John, in an ecstasy of thankfulness unto them, they having been the instruments of so great a mercy from God towards him; as also out of fear, lest when they were gone he might relapse: he that found so great a change in himself could not but be as much surprised as they that saw the change upon him. The porch that is called Solomon s; not that which was built by Solomon, for that was destroyed by the Babylonians, as the rest of the temple was, 2 Kings 25:9; unless some part of this porch might not be consumed by the fire, when the other parts of the temple were burned, some morsel often escaping the jaws of that devouring element, fire; or it may be it was built in the re-edification of the temple, in the same place where Solomon's porch had stood, and thence called by the former name that was so much remembered. If any wonder that a porch should hold so many thousands of people, inasmuch as five thousand of them are said to be converted, Acts 4:4; this porch is thought not only to have been the court of the Gentiles, and that of the Jews, that is, the outward and inward court; but to have contained a great part of the court of the Gentiles, if the whole court of the Gentiles might not be so called, as being indeed but a porch, or an entrance into the court of the Jews.