Acts 2:10

Phrygia, and Pamphylia. Two small districts southeast of Roman “Asia.”

Egypt. For more than a millennium and a half there had been a tie between Egypt and the Hebrews. Witness the sojourn there of Jacob and his family, the enslavement of the Hebrew tribes, and the later Egyptian invasions of Palestine (see on 1 Kings 14:25).

There was a strong pro-Egyptian party in Judea in the time of Jeremiah, and many, including Jeremiah himself, were taken there while Judea was falling into the hands of the Babylonians (Jer. 42:13 to 43:7). Thousands of Jews were taken to Egypt by Ptolemy, and others went there during the struggles of the Maccabees against the Seleucid kings. Jews constituted about one third of the population of Alexandria in Luke’s day, and were ruled by an ethnarch of their own (Josephus Antiquities xiv. 7.2 [117]). The country was Hellenized, but the local language was Coptic, a development of ancient Egyptian largely written in the Greek alphabet, and modified by Demotic (simplified Egyptian writing) influences.

Libya. A name anciently used for all known Africa, with the possible exception of Egypt, but to be understood here as indicating approximately the same territory as modern Libya, Cyrene being its chief city on the Mediterranean coast. Its culture was highly Hellenistic, but it possessed a large Jewish colony, the result of a deportation from Palestine under Ptolemy I (Josephus Against Apian ii. 4 [44]). From Cyrene came Simon, who had borne Jesus’ cross (Matt. 27:32), and it was from there that missionary-minded men were to evangelize Antioch of Syria, having such success that Barnabas and Saul of Tarsus went to help them (Acts 11:19-26). See on Gen. 10:13.

Strangers of Rome. Gr. epidemountes Rhomaioi, “sojourning Romans.” Rhomaioi usually means “Roman citizens” rather than “inhabitants of Rome.” The phrase “strangers of Rome” would therefore refer to Jews who lived at Rome as sojourners, or to Roman Jews temporarily sojourning in Jerusalem. Jews were so numerous in Rome that when Varus sanctioned their sending an embassy to Augustus, the 50 ambassadors were joined by more than 8,000 of their countrymen resident in the city (Josephus Antiquities xvii. 11.1). Jews had been banished from Italy by Tiberius in A.D. 19. That edict must have sent several thousands seeking asylum, and naturally numbers of them would return to Palestine. Tiberius revoked this edict, but many Roman Jews might well have lingered in Jerusalem (see Vol. V, pp. 65, 66).

Jews and proselytes. The words may be applied to the whole preceding list, or they may be read like a note, especially emphasizing the prominence of the Roman proselytes in that cosmopolitan multitude of worshipers.

It is natural that the Gentile Luke (see Vol. V, p. 664), writing to the Gentile Theophilus (see on Luke 1:3), should mention visitors from the capital of the Roman Empire. For “proselytes” see on Matt. 23:15.