Acts 11:27-30

Prophecy of Agabus. Mission to Jerusalem of Barnabas and Saul. Prophets from Jerusalem (cf. Acts 15:32 *). Vague dating, in those days. The story fixes its own date. Agabus appears again in Acts 21:10; he put forward strong statements dramatically. Here he prophesies a world-wide famine; such a famine did take place in A.D. 46; but the prophecy is uttered before the reign of Claudius, A.D. 41. A famine afflicted Judæ a early in his reign and suits our passage better (p. 654). The prophecy gives rise to a measure of help for the brethren in Judæ a, which occasions a journey to Judæ a of Barnabas and Saul. The sum collected is sent to the elders at Jerusalem, a body of whom we have not heard before. This second journey of Saul to Jerusalem will be the same as that spoken of in Galatians 2:1 ff. [This view is generally combined with the view that Acts 15 relates Paul's third visit (see p. 858), but Dr. Menzies holds with several scholars that the visit in Acts 11:30 is to be identified with that in Acts 15. Another view is that the two visits in Ac. are to be distinguished, but that the visit in Galatians 2 is to be identified with neither but with an earlier visit unrecorded in Ac. The generally accepted opinion that the visits in Acts 11:30 and Acts 15 are to be distinguished and that the latter is to be identified with that in Galatians 2 seems preferable to any of these theories. A. S. P.] It is from Antioch, and is made by Paul and Barnabas; it has reference to a collection for the poor at Jerusalem. The ingredients are the same, though differently placed with reference to each other; and the confusion as to the famine and as to the collection made before the reason for it has taken place, shakes our faith in the historical nature of this section. Barnabas and Saul are mentioned in this order down to Acts 15:12.

Acts 11:27. D and some Latin MSS add: and there was great rejoicing. But when we were returning (or gathered together) one of them called Agabus said a narrative in first person plural, such as occurs in apocryphal Acts, Gospel of Peter, and later in Ac. (cf. Introd. p. 776).