But Paul answered, “I am a Jew from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no ordinary city. Now I beg you to allow me to speak to the people.”
We have here Paul brought into a captivity which we are not likely to see the end of; for after this he is either hurried from one bar to another, or lies neglected, first in one prison and then in another, and can neither be tried nor bailed. When we see the beginning of a trouble, we know not either how long it will last or how it will issue.
Commenting on Acts 21:27-40
But Paul said, I am a man which am a Jew of Tarsus,.... And not that Egyptian; he was not of that country, much less that man; but a Jew, both by birth and religion; he was born of Jewish parents, and brought up in the Jewish religion; though his native place was Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, where it is placed by Pliny (n)...
Verse 39. A Jew of Tarsus. A Jew by birth. . Of no mean city. Not obscure, or undistinguished. He could claim an honourable birth, so far as the place of his nativity was concerned. . Tarsus was much celebrated fro its learning, and was at one time the rival of Alexandria and Athens. Xenophon calls it a great and flourishing city. Anabasis. Josephus (Antiq. b. i.