11:27 At that time 1 some 2 prophets 3 came down 4 from Jerusalem 5 to Antioch. 6 11:28 One of them, named Agabus, got up 7 and predicted 8 by the Spirit that a severe 9 famine 10 was about to come over the whole inhabited world. 11 (This 12 took place during the reign of Claudius.) 13
1 tn Grk “In these days,” but the dative generally indicates a specific time.
2 tn The word “some” is not in the Greek text, but is usually used in English when an unspecified number is mentioned.
3 sn Prophets are mentioned only here and in 13:1 and 21:10 in Acts.
4 sn Came down from Jerusalem. Antioch in Syria lies due north of Jerusalem. In Western languages it is common to speak of north as “up” and south as “down,” but the NT maintains the Hebrew idiom which speaks of any direction away from Jerusalem as down (since Mount Zion was thought of in terms of altitude).
5 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
6 sn Antioch was a city in Syria (not Antioch in Pisidia). See the note in 11:19.
map For location see JP1-F2; JP2-F2; JP3-F2; JP4-F2
7 tn Grk “getting up, predicted.” The participle ἀναστάς (anasta") has been translated as a finite verb due to requirements of contemporary English style.
8 tn Or “made clear”; Grk “indicated beforehand” (BDAG 920 s.v. σημαίνω 2).
9 tn Grk “great.”
10 sn This famine is one of the firmly fixed dates in Acts. It took place from
11 tn Or “whole Roman Empire.” While the word οἰκουμένη (oikoumenh) does occasionally refer specifically to the Roman Empire, BDAG 699 s.v. οἰκουνένη 2 does not list this passage (only Acts 24:5 and 17:6).
12 tn Grk “world, which.” The relative pronoun (“which”) was replaced by the demonstrative pronoun “this” and a new sentence was begun in the translation at this point to improve the English style, due to the length of the sentence in Greek.
13 sn This is best taken as a parenthetical note by the author. Claudius was the Roman emperor Tiberius Claudius Nero Germanicus, known as Claudius, who ruled from