Acts 18:3

And because he was of the same craft Among the Jews every Rabbi deemed it proper to practise some handicraft, and they have a proverb about R. Isaac, who was a smith, "Better is the sentence of the smith (R. Isaac) than that of the smith's son (R. Jochanan)," thus marking their opinion that the pursuit of a craft was no injury to the teacher's wisdom (T. B. Sanhedrin, 96 a). Thus our Lord is spoken of (Mark 6:3) as "the carpenter."

he abode with them, and wrought Some ancient authorities read and they wrought. This change in the number seems awkward. The mention already made of the craft of Aquila and his wife conveys the information that theywrought: what the sentence seems to need is the addition which the singular gives that "he wrought." In a passage from T. B. Sukkah, 51 b, part of which has already been quoted on Acts 6:9, we read in a description of the Jewish synagogue at Alexandria, "The people did not sit mixed together, but goldsmiths by themselves, and silversmiths by themselves, and ironworkers by themselves, and miners by themselves, and weavers by themselves, and when a poor man came there he recognised the members of his craft, and went there, and from thence was his support, and that of the members of his house." This may explain how readily Paul found at Corinth some persons who were of his own craft.

by their occupation they were tentmakers What they made was most probably tent-cloth. This was of goats" hair, and the plaiting of it into strips and joining these together was a common employment in Cilicia, to such an extent that the district gave name to the material and the articles made of it, a soldier's and sailor's rough hair rug being named Cilicium. As the trade was intended in such cases as St Paul's merely to be used as a resource under circumstances of need which were not likely to come about, we can understand that while complying with Jewish feeling in the matter, a trade would be chosen for the boy which would not consume a large part of his time in learning. Mishnah Qiddushiniv. 14 says "let a person teach his son a trade both clean and easy." The most common handicraft of Tarsus offered just such a trade in the making of this rough goats" hair cloth.