Acts 26:6 - Clarke's commentary and critical notes on the Bible

And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers: For the hope of the promise - This does not appear to mean, the hope of the Messiah, as some have imagined, but the hope of the resurrection of the dead, to which the apostle referred in Acts 23:6 (note), where he says to the Jewish council, (from which the Roman governor took him), of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question: see the notes there. And here he says, I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise, etc., and to which, he says, Acts 26:7, the twelve tribes hope to come. The Messiah had come, and was gone again, as Paul well knew; and what is here meant is something which the Jews hoped to come to, or attain; not what was to come to them; and this singular observation excludes the Messiah from being meant. It was the resurrection of all men from the dead which Paul's words signified; and this the Jews had been taught to hope for, by many passages in the Old Testament. I shall only add, that when, in the next verse, this hope of the promise is mentioned as what the Jews did then hope, καταντηοαι, to come to, it is the very same word which Paul, in Philippians 3:11, uses to express the same thing: If by any means, (says he) καταντησω, I might attain to, the resurrection of the dead. Bp. Pearce.