Acts 19:12

Handkerchiefs or aprons,— The words Σουδαρια η σιμικινθια, were originally Latin words,—Sudaria and Semicincthia. The etymology of the first plainly determines it to signify a piece of linen, with which the sweat was wiped from the face; and as the latter, literally rendered, signifies things girt half round the waist, it is properly enough rendered aprons. Some read it sashes. It is justly observed by many writers, that these cures wrought upon absent persons, some of them perhaps at a considerable distance from Ephesus, might, under the blessing of God, conduce greatly to the success of the gospel among those, whose faces St. Paul had never seen.