Acts 11:5

11:5 “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision, ¹  an object something like a large sheet descending, ²  being let down from heaven ³  by its four corners, and it came to me.

Acts 11:28

11:28 One of them, named Agabus, got up ⁴  and predicted ⁵  by the Spirit that a severe ⁶  famine ⁷  was about to come over the whole inhabited world. ⁸  (This ⁹  took place during the reign of Claudius.) ¹⁰ 

Acts 15:3

15:3 So they were sent on their way by the church, and as they passed through both Phoenicia ¹¹  and Samaria, they were relating at length ¹²  the conversion of the Gentiles and bringing great joy ¹³  to all the brothers.

[11:5]  ¹ tn This term describes a supernatural vision and reflects a clear distinction from something imagined (BDAG 718 s.v. ὅραμα 1). Peter repeated the story virtually word for word through v. 13. The repetition with this degree of detail shows the event’s importance.

[11:5]  ² tn Or “coming down.”

[11:5]  ³ tn Or “the sky” (the same Greek word means both “heaven” and “sky”).

[11:28]  ⁴ tn Grk “getting up, predicted.” The participle ἀναστάς (anasta") has been translated as a finite verb due to requirements of contemporary English style.

[11:28]  ⁵ tn Or “made clear”; Grk “indicated beforehand” (BDAG 920 s.v. σημαίνω 2).

[11:28]  ⁶ tn Grk “great.”

[11:28]  ⁷ sn This famine is one of the firmly fixed dates in Acts. It took place from a.d. 45-48. The events described in chap. 11 of Acts occurred during the early part of that period.

[11:28]  ⁸ 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).

[11:28]  ⁹ 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.

[11:28]  ¹⁰ 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 a.d. 41-54.

[15:3]  ⁷ sn Phoenicia was an area along the Mediterranean coast north of Palestine in ancient Syria.

[15:3]  ⁸ tn L&N 33.201 indicates that ἐκδιηγέομαι (ekdihgeomai) means to provide detailed information in a systematic manner, “to inform, to relate, to tell fully.” “Relating at length” conveys this effectively in the present context.

[15:3]  ⁹ tn For ἐποίουν (epoioun) in this verse BDAG 839 s.v. ποιέω 2.c has “they brought joy to the members.”