Bible Strands
Acts 14:19
Then some Jews arrived from Antioch and Iconium and won over the crowds. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, presuming he was dead.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — After Paul and Barnabas resist a Lystra crowd’s attempt to sacrifice to them, Jewish opponents from previous stops arrive to turn the crowd against the apostles. This occurs at the immediate moment before the disciples gather around Paul’s apparent corpse.
The words — Ἐπῆλθαν (Epēlthan) = "came" or "arrived," marking the sudden onset of the opposition. Ἰουδαῖοι (Ioudaioi) = "Jews," identifying the specific group that initiated the attack.
The thread — This event connects to Acts 13:50, where Jews incite city leaders to stir up persecution. It also aligns with 2 Corinthians 11:25, which records Paul’s later reference to being stoned, and 2 Timothy 3:11, which lists Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra as locations where Paul endured persecution.
Why it lands — The text records a concrete sequence: arrival, persuasion, stoning, dragging, and presumed death. It requires the reader to acknowledge the physical cost of the mission and the immediate, unvarnished reality of the opposition faced.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Greek words
King James Version
And there came thither certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people, and, having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead.
Cross-references
- 2 Corinthians 11:25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked. I spent a night and a day in the open sea.
- 2 Timothy 3:11 my persecutions, and the sufferings that came upon me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. What persecutions I endured! Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them.
- Acts 13:50 The Jews, however, incited the religious women of prominence and the leading men of the city. They stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas and drove them out of their district.
- Acts 13:45 But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy, and they blasphemously contradicted what Paul was saying.
- Acts 14:5 But when the Gentiles and Jews, together with their rulers, set out to mistreat and stone them,
- 2 Corinthians 11:23 Are they servants of Christ? (I am speaking as if I were out of my mind.) I am so much more: in harder labor, in more imprisonments, in worse beatings, in frequent danger of death.
- Acts 7:58 They dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile the witnesses laid their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.
- Acts 9:16 I will show him how much he must suffer for My name.”
- Hebrews 13:12 And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate, to sanctify the people by His own blood.
- Acts 17:13 But when the Jews from Thessalonica learned that Paul was also proclaiming the word of God in Berea, they went there themselves to incite and agitate the crowds.