Acts 9:31 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Then had the churches rest— This rest is by no means to be ascribed merelyor chiefly to St. Paul's conversion; who, though a great zealot, was but a young man, of no immediate or supreme authority, and whose personal danger proves the persecution in some measure to have been continued at least three years after it. The period here spoken of, appears to be that which commenced at or quickly after St. Paul's setting out for Cilicia; and the best commentators seem agreed, that this repose of the Christians was occasioned by the general alarm which was given to the Jews, then the sole persecutors of the Christians, about the year 40; when Petronius, by the order of Caligula, incensed by some affront said to have been offered him by the Alexandrian Jews, attempted to bring the statue of that emperor among them, and to set it up in the holy of holies—a horrid profanation, which the whole people deprecated with the greatest concern in the most solicitous and affectionate manner, and by which they were so much taken up, that they had not leisure to look after or persecute the Christians. How long this rest continued, we do not certainly know; probably till Herod interrupted it, chap. 12: Acts 9:1. Dr. Doddridge, following Beza's construction of this intricate verse, renders it as follows: Then the churches through all Judea, and Galilee, and Samaria, being edified, had rest; and walking in the fear of the Lord and the consolation of the Holy Spirit were multiplied. Dr. Heylin reads it, At that time the churches, &c. had peace; being edified, and advancing in the fear of the Lord; and they became more numerous by the assistance of the Holy Ghost. The word οικοδμουμεναι, edified, is figurative, and properly a term of architecture, signifying the erecting or constructing the whole superstructure upon a foundation. In this place, it must signify by analogy, that the churches were properly instructed in all the fundamental doctrines of the gosp