Acts 10:14

Not so, Lord Cp. Ezekiel 4:14, where the prophet being shewn that the children of Israel shall eat defiled bread among the Gentiles, exclaims in words very like St Peter's: "There never came abominable flesh into my mouth." For the care with which the devout Jew observed the ceremonial distinction between clean and unclean, see Daniel 1:8-12; 2Ma 6:18.

common or unclean The oldest authorities read "common andunclean." The use of "common" in the sense of impure according to the Mosaic ritual is, as were the ordinances about which this language was employed, peculiar to the Jews. But it is easy to trace the steps by which the word came to be used thus. All persons who were not Jews were viewed as the "common" rabble, shut out from God's covenant, then whatever practices of these outcasts differed from those of the chosen people were called "common" things, and as these "common" things were those forbidden by the Law, all such prohibited things or actions became known as "common." Cp. Mark 7:2, where the margin explains that "defiledhands" is in the original "commonhands."