Paul, Silas, Timothy, and Luke were in a strange city in a strange land. They had been there some days, but when the Sabbath came they would naturally long to be with fellow Jews with whom they could worship and to whom they could impart their good news of salvation (see on ch. 13:14).

Rather, “outside of the gate.” They possibly searched the city for a synagogue, and finding none, went to seek a temporary place of worship by the riverside. Alternatively, they may have known that the synagogue or meeting place lay outside the city wall.

 Gr. proseuchē, “prayer,” or probably here, “place of prayer” (see 3 Macc. 7:20; cf. on Acts 1:14; 16:16). If there were no synagogues in Philippi, the few Jews may have established a meeting place on the riverbank, where they could perform their ceremonial washings (cf. Ezra 8:15, 21; Ps. 137:1). Juvenal (Satires iii. 13, 14; Loeb ed., p. 33) notes this as one of the instances of the decay of the old religion of Rome: “The holy fount and grove and shrine are let out to Jews.” A relevant application is seen in another line from the same writer (ibid. 296; Loeb ed., p. 55): “‘Say, where is your stand? In what prayer-shop [proseuchē] shall I find you?’” Such enclosures or oratories were frequently circular, and without a roof. The practice of having such places continued into the time of Tertullian, who speaks of the waterside prayers (orationes litorales) of the Jews (Ad Nationes i. 13).

Important textual evidence may be cited (cf. p. 10) for the reading, “where there was supposed to be a prayer [place]” (see above under “prayer”).

A common custom of Jewish teachers (see Vol. V, pp. 57, 58).

Or, “began speaking.” The form of the Greek verb suggests that all four of the apostles addressed the group.

 The phrase might be better translated, “women who had come together,” or “assembled women.” Someone has observed that the “man of Macedonia” (v. 9) proved to be a devout group of Jewish women. Some preachers would have found in this an excuse for neglecting their commission, but Paul and his companions were not so easily dissuaded from their task. That there were only women gathered at the place of prayer points to an almost entire absence of Jewish men in the local population. This would account for the probable lack of a synagogue, since none could be established without a minimum membership of ten men. Some of the women whom the missionaries found may have been proselytes, like Lydia (see on v. 14). Such women would naturally welcome Jewish strangers who came to give instruction. In Macedonia women seem to have enjoyed greater freedom than was usual to their sex at the time.

Gr. para potamon, “beside a river,” that is, doubtless, by the stream Gangites, which ran into the river Strymon.