After they were come to Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered them not.
After they were come to Mysia - lying north westward of Phrygia, but where, as being part of Roman Asia, they had been forbidden to labour,
They assayed (or 'attempted') to go into Bithynia, [not kata (G2596) teen (G3588) B., as in the Received Text, with G H, etc., but teen (G3588) B., with 'Aleph (') A B C D E, etc., and most of the Greek fathers: so Lachmann and Tischendorf]. The meaning seems to be, that they made their arrangements with the view of entering this province, lying to the northeast of Mysia, on the southern shore of the Black Sea.
But the Spirit - `the Spirit of Jesus' would seem to be the true reading here [so 'Aleph (') A B C ** D E, etc., the Vulgate, both Syriac versions, etc., and several of the fathers. So Lachmann and Tischendorf]. This reading, however, is so special that one cannot but stand in doubt of it. Yet compare the last words of Acts 16:10.
Suffered them not - speaking authoritatively by some prophet. But why, it may be asked, did the Spirit not suffer them to preach the Gospel in those regions? Probably, first, because Europe was ripe for the labours of our missionary party; and, secondly, because other instruments were to have the honour of establishing the Gospel in the eastern regions of Asia Minor-especially the apostle Peter, if we may gather so much from 1 Peter 1:1. By the end of the first century, as we learn from the celebrated Epistle of Pliny the Roman Governor to the Emperor Trajan, Bithynia was filled with Christians. There seems much force in the following remarks of Baumgarten:-`This is the first time that the Holy Spirit is expressly spoken of as determining the course they were to follow in their efforts to evangelize the nations, and it was evidently designed to show that whereas hitherto the diffusion of the Gospel had been carried on in unbroken course, connected by natural points of junction, it was now to take a leap to which it could not be impelled but by an immediate and independent operation of the Spirit; and though primarily this intimation of the Spirit was only negative, and referred but to the immediate neighbourhood, we may certainly conclude that Paul took it for a sign that a new epoch was now to commence in his apostolic labours.'