Acts 13:24

When John had first preached before his coming the baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(24) The baptism of repentance.—See Notes on Matthew 3:1-12.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

13:14-31 When we come together to worship God, we must do it, not only by prayer and praise, but by the reading and hearing of the word of God. The bare reading of the Scriptures in public assemblies is not enough; they should be expounded, and the people exhorted out of them. This is helping people in doing that which is necessary to make the word profitable, to apply it to themselves. Every thing is touched upon in this sermon, which might best prevail with Jews to receive and embrace Christ as the promised Messiah. And every view, however short or faint, of the Lord's dealings with his church, reminds us of his mercy and long-suffering, and of man's ingratitude and perverseness. Paul passes from David to the Son of David, and shows that this Jesus is his promised Seed; a Saviour to do that for them, which the judges of old could not do, to save them from their sins, their worst enemies. When the apostles preached Christ as the Saviour, they were so far from concealing his death, that they always preached Christ crucified. Our complete separation from sin, is represented by our being buried with Christ. But he rose again from the dead, and saw no corruption: this was the great truth to be preached.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

When John had first preached ... - After John had preached and prepared the way, Matthew 3:

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

23-25. Of this man's seed hath God, according to … promise, raised unto Israel a Saviour, Jesus—The emphasis on this statement lies: (1) in the seed from which Christ sprang—David's—and the promise to that effect, which was thus fulfilled; (2) on the character in which this promised Christ was given of God—"a Saviour." His personal name "Jesus" is emphatically added, as designed to express that very character. (See on [2005]Mt 1:21).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

John the Baptist did not speak of Christ’s coming, as the other apostles had done, as of a thing a great way off, or at a distance of time; but he spake of it as of a present matter, before his and their faces, and in their view;

Behold the Lamb of God! John 1:29,36.

The baptism of repentance; so it is called, Matthew 3:2,8 Mr 1:4 Luke 3:3; repentance being a due qualification for such as hope to receive the mercies of God in Christ unto life eternal.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

When John had first preached before his coming,.... Or, "before the face of his entrance"; that is, on his public ministry; for John did not preach before the coming of Christ in the flesh, being born but half a year before him; but before he came forth and was manifest to Israel; before he entered upon his work and office, as a prophet and teacher of the people: and this points out the business of John the Baptist, who was the forerunner of Christ, and went before his face to prepare his way, who gave notice of his coming, and bore testimony to him; and whose testimony the apostle here produces, as being what the Jews could not well reject and deny, he being of so much probity and integrity, and so great a prophet, as he was accounted by all the people; and whom he prepared for the reception of the Messiah, by first preaching;

the baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel: he not only administered the ordinance of baptism, but he preached the doctrine of it, opened the nature and design of it, and required repentance and fruits meet for it, in those who came to have it administered to them: for which reason it is called the baptism of repentance; and this he did publicly before all the people, when the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan, came unto him; see Mark 1:4.

Geneva Study Bible

When John had first preached {n} before his coming the baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel.

(n) John as a herald did not show Christ coming from afar off, as the other prophets did, but right at hand and having already begun his journey.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Expositor's Greek Testament

Acts 13:24. προκηρύξ. not in LXX or Apocrypha, but in classical Greek, cf. also Josephus, Ant., x., 5, 1, and also in Plut., Polyb.—πρὸ προσώπου τῆς εἰσόδου: “before the face of his entering in,” R.V. margin, cf. Luke 1:76; here used temporally, really a Hebraistic pleonasm, cf. Malachi 3:1, an expression used as still under the influence of that passage, Simcox, Language of the N. T., p. 154, and also Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, p. 23.—εἰσόδου: the entry of Jesus upon His public Messianic ministry, a word which may also have been suggested by Malachi 3:2, LXX.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

24. the baptism of repentance] Cp. Mark 1:4.

Bengel's Gnomen

Acts 13:24. Πρὸ προσώπου τῆς εἰσόδου αὐτοῦ, before the presence [face] of His entry [His coming among us]) L. de Dieu observes the remarkable emphasis expressed on account of the nearness of the Messiah, already then present. With this comp. Numbers 19:4, ἀπέναντι τοῦ προσώπου τῆς σκηνῆς τοῦ μαρτυρίου, before the presence of the tabernacle of witness.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 24. - His coming (τῆς εἰσόδου); his entrance upon his ministry, with reference to the ὁδὸς (the way) of Isaiah 40:3 and Malachi 3:1 (for the use of dadoes, see 1 Thessalonians 1:9; 2 Thessalonians 2:1). Acts 13:24

Vincent's Word Studies

Before his coming (πρὸ προσώπου τῆς εἰσόδου αὐτοῦ)

Lit., before the face of his entrance. A Hebrew form of expression.