Acts 14:19

19. This state of suspense was most favorable to the acceptance of Paul's own explanation of his miraculous power, and consequently to their belief of the gospel; and we can not doubt that some of the disciples, whom we afterward find there, owed their conviction, in part, to the circumstance. But with those who did not promptly embrace the faith, the same suspense made room for explanations unfavorable to conviction, and such explanations were soon given. (19) "But Jews from Antioch and Iconium came thither, and having persuaded the multitude, and stoned Paul, they dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead." The readiness with which a people who had so recently offered divine honors to Paul were persuaded to stone him to death, though at first glance surprising, is but a natural result of all the circumstances. That portion of them who had been prominent in the idolatrous proceedings felt mortified at the discovery of their mistake, and were naturally inclined to excuse their own folly by throwing censure upon the innocent objects of it. The Jews stimulated this feeling by urging that Paul was an impostor, and that all the honorable women and chief men of Antioch and Iconium had united in driving him away from those cities. This enabled them to charge him with willful deception, and as their feelings were already keyed up to their utmost tension they were easily swayed to the opposite extreme, and at a nod from the Jews they were ready to dash him to pieces. That Paul, rather than Barnabas, was the victim of their wrath, resulted from the fact that both here and in the cities from which the Jews had come, he was the chief speaker. The same circumstance which had given him the inferior place in their idolatry, gave him, finally, the superior place in their hatred.