Acts 19:24 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Demetrius—which made silver shrines for Diana,— These shrines, it has been generally supposed, were little models of the famous temple of Diana, with folding-doors; which being opened, the image of the idol goddess was seen placed therein. The votaries of Diana who came to worship at Ephesus, used to purchase them; and it is not unlikely, that upon their return home, they set them up, and consecrated them in their private or domestic heathen chapels. This opinion is rendered probable by a variety of passages in ancient authors. Beza, however, and others conjecture, that the business of Demetrius might possibly be, making a sort of coins or medals, on the reverse of which the temple was represented: and in Beza's Greek Testament, we have a print of one of these medals, in which the image itself is exhibited as seen through the open doors of the temple. It is possible that this company of workmen might take in those who wrought in all these idolatrous commodities; and likewise those who made a kind of pageants, intended for public processions, in which Diana was represented in a kind of moveable chapel, resembling her great temple, in a larger proportion than these supposed shrines or models.