Acts Chapter 28 verse 21 Holy Bible
And they said unto him, We neither received letters from Judaea concerning thee, nor did any of the brethren come hither and report or speak any harm of thee.
read chapter 28 in ASV
And they said to him, We have not had letters from Judaea about you, and no one of the brothers has come to us here to give an account or say any evil about you.
read chapter 28 in BBE
And they said to him, For our part, we have neither received letters from Judaea concerning thee, nor has any one of the brethren who has arrived reported or said anything evil concerning thee.
read chapter 28 in DARBY
And they said unto him, We neither received letters out of Judaea concerning thee, neither any of the brethren that came shewed or spake any harm of thee.
read chapter 28 in KJV
read chapter 28 in WBT
They said to him, "We neither received letters from Judea concerning you, nor did any of the brothers come here and report or speak any evil of you.
read chapter 28 in WEB
And they said unto him, `We did neither receive letters concerning thee from Judea, nor did any one who came of the brethren declare or speak any evil concerning thee,
read chapter 28 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 21. - From for out of, A.V.; nor for neither, A.V.; did any of the brethren come hither and report or speak for any of the brethren that came showed or spake, A.V. Nor did any of the brethren come hither, etc. This is no improvement on the A.V.; for it implies that they denied that any special messenger had been sent to speak harm of Paul, which nobody could have thought had been done. What they meant to say is exactly what the A.V. makes them say, viz. that, neither by special letters, nor by message nor casual information brought by Jews coming to Rome from Judaea, had they heard any harm of him. This seems odd; but as the Jews had no apparent motive for not speaking the truth, we must accept it as true. The expulsion of the Jews from Rome by Claudius (Acts 18:1) may have slackened the intercourse between Judaea and Rome; the attention of the Jews may have been absorbed by their accusation of Felix; there had been a very short interval between Paul's appeal and his departure for Rome; he had only been at Rome three days, and so it is very possible that no report had yet reached Rome concerning him at this early season of the year.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(21) We neither received letters out of Judsea concerning thee . . .--It seems strange at first that no tidings should have come from Jerusalem of what had passed there in connection with St. Paul's imprisonment. There was, however, hardly likely to have been time for any letters since his appeal. He had sailed somewhat late in the autumn, immediately after he had made it (Acts 25:13; Acts 27:1), and all communication by sea was suspended during the winter months. And it may be noted further that the Jews do not say that they had heard absolutely nothing about him, but that those who had come had spoken nothing evil of him. What they had heard by casual rumour may well have been consistent with St. James's statement that "he walked orderly, and observed the Law" (Acts 21:20). It has been urged that the decree of Claudius had suspended the intercourse between the Jews of Rome and those of Jerusalem; but as the former had returned before he wrote the Epistle to the Romans, this is hardly a tenable explanation. It may, however, be taken into account that among the Jews who had returned to Rome would be not a few of those who had known St. Paul at Corinth, and were willing to bear their testimony to his character.
