For you are bringing some strange notions to our ears, and we want to know what they mean.”
A scholar that has acquaintance, and is in love, with the learning of the ancients, would think he should be very happy if he were where Paul now was, at Athens, in the midst of the various sects of philosophers, and would have a great many curious questions to ask them, for the explication of the remains we have of the Athenian learning; but Paul...
Commenting on Acts 17:16-21
For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears,.... Strange doctrines and strange deities, such as they had never heard of before: we would know therefore what these things mean; they desire he would explain these things to them, and let them know the rise, and ground, and nature, and end, and design of them.
Verse 20. Certain strange things. Literally, something pertaining to a foreign country or people. Here it means something unusual, remarkable, to which we are not accustomed to hear from their philosophers and religious teachers. What these things mean. We would understand more clearly what is affirmed respecting Jesus and the resurrection. (a) "certain strange"