Who, when he came, and had seen the grace of God, was glad, and exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord.
Who, when he came, and had seen the grace of God, was glad, [ echaree (G5463 ), or 'rejoiced,'] and exhorted them all х parekalei (G3870)] - an allusion, perhaps, to the name, 'son of exhortation,' given him by the apostles,
That with purpose of heart (as opposed to a hasty and fickle discipleship) they would cleave unto the Lord. Each party seems to have acted toward the other in a beautiful spirit. As for the new converts, instead of regarding Barnabas with prejudice and suspicion, as an intruder on the labours of their own teachers, they, and their teachers themselves, seem to have hailed his visit, and to have put themselves cordially under him as an honoured deputy from the mother Church, who would confirm and advance them in the Faith, the rudiments of which only they had as yet received. But no less admirable was the spirit of Barnabas. Unlike some ecclesiastics of subsequent times-jealous for their own position, and looking with unfriendly eye on the evangelistic labours of simple Christians as irregular and disorderly-this disinterested and noble-minded teacher no sooner saw the grace of God in these uncircumcised converts than he owned it as divine, and rejoiced in it; nor could he find anything at first to do among them, except to exhort them all that (guarding against fickleness) with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord. The question of circumcision seems never to have come up. The reality first, and then the permanence of the grace given to them, seem to have been his whole care; and the historian evidently wishes his readers to regard this as the result of rare spirituality and large-heartedness on the part of Barnabas-adding, as he does, this significant remark,