“For these are not drunk, as you suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day.”

He first points out the unlikelihood of these men being drunk. It is too early in the day. Most Jews would only drink wine when they ate flesh and it was usual to eat flesh in the evening. Furthermore even heartier drinkers were unlikely to have drunk enough to be in such a state by roughly 9:00 am on a Feast Day, for they would not even have had their first meal, and this was a recognised time of prayer (compare Acts 3:1). So drinking by this time would simply not have been done. They were here for prayer in preparation for the more religious side of the Feast at the Temple. Such drinking as there was would come later.

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