And he said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean.
28. Ye know that it is not lawful. This seemeth to be no friendly preface, and such as may rather harden “Exasperet,” exasperate. than win their hearts, when as they hear that they are accounted so unclean, that with their familiarity and conference they pollute the saints; which must needs be a great reproach for them.
We have here the meeting between Peter the apostle, and Cornelius the centurion. Though Paul was designed to be the apostle of the Gentiles, and to gather in the harvest among them, and Peter to be the apostle of the circumcision, yet it is ordered that Peter shall break the ice, and reap the first-fruits of the Gentiles, that the believing Jews, who retained too...
Commenting on Acts 10:19-33
And he said unto them,.... The whole company that were met together, who were chiefly, if not altogether Gentiles: ye know that it is an unlawful thing; what is forbidden by the law of Moses, Deu 7:2 and by the traditions of the elders, which carry the matter further than the law did, and made it very criminal: for a man that is a Jew...