14. departed from Perga--apparently without making any stay or doing
any work: compare the different language of
Ac 14:25,
and see immediately below.
came to Antioch in Pisidia--usually so called, to distinguish it
from Antioch in Syria, from which they had started, though it actually
lies in Phrygia, and almost due north from Perga. It was a long journey,
and as it lay almost entirely through rugged mountain passes, while
"rivers burst out at the base of huge cliffs, or dash down wildly
through narrow ravines," it must have been a perilous one. The whole
region was, and to this day is, infested by robbers, as ancient history
and modern travels abundantly attest; and there can be but little doubt
that to this very journey Paul many years after alludes, when he speaks
amidst his "journeyings often," of his "perils of rivers"
(as the word is),
and his "perils of robbers"
(2Co 11:26).
If this journey were taken in May--and earlier than that the passes
would have been blocked up with snow--it would account for their not
staying at Perga, whose hot streets are then deserted; "men, women, and
children, flocks, herds, camels, and asses, all ascending at the
beginning of the hot season from the plains to the cool basin-like
hollows on the mountains, moving in the same direction with our
missionaries" [HOWSON].
JFB.
Picture Study Bible