Acts 21:13, commentary and pictures

At Caesarea Paul answered with these words the tears and pleas of Luke and the local believers and brethren who begged him not to go up to Jerusalem after he had been warned that he would be bound there. The warning had come when Agabus bound his own hands and feet with Paul's girdle and declared by the Holy Ghost that the Jews at Jerusalem would bind its owner and deliver him to the Gentiles. The saying belongs to the account leading to Paul's arrival in Jerusalem, where the brethren received him gladly while he remained anxious about how the elders regarded him and his work.

Their weeping broke his heart and grieved him deeply at parting, showing tender affection for fellow Christians. He was deeply moved and wept in sympathy for the sorrow his resolve caused them, not for himself. Yet he refused to swerve from the path of duty and obedience to the will of God, resolving to follow Christ to prison and to death, ready to be bound and to die at Jerusalem for Jesus. To human judgment he had reason to stay, yet neither the love of friends nor even a prophet's warning could turn him aside to the right hand or to the left.

Their weeping caused him pain without changing his purpose, until they stopped urging him and left the outcome to the Lord's will. His firmness in defending truth and rebuking sin went together with gentleness and sympathy toward his friends.