After spending no more than eight or ten days with them, Festus went down to Caesarea. The next day he sat on the judgment seat and ordered that Paul be brought in.
We commonly say, "New lords, new laws, new customs;" but here was a new governor, and yet Paul had the same treatment from him that he had from the former, and no better. Festus, like Felix, is not so just to him as he should have been, for he does not release him; and yet not so unjust to him as the Jews would have...
Commenting on Acts 25:1-12
And when he had tarried among them more than ten days,.... The Alexandrian copy, and three of Beza's copies, and some others, and the Vulgate Latin version read, "no more than eight or ten days"; and the Syriac and Ethiopic versions leave out the phrase "no more", and read "when he had stayed there", as the former; that is, at Jerusalem; or "when he had...
Verse 6. More than ten days. See the margin. The Syriac reads it, "eight or ten." The Vulgate, "not more than eight or ten." The Coptic, "eight or ten." Griesbach supposes this to be the true reading, and has admitted it into the text. Sitting in the judgment seat. On the tribunal; or holding a court for the trial of Paul. Commanded Paul to be brought.