13:20 And after that he gave [unto them] judges about the space of {l} four hundred and fifty years, until Samuel the prophet.
(l) There were from the birth of Isaac until the destruction of the Canaanites under the governance of Joshua four hundred and forty-seven years, and therefore he adds in this place the word about, for three years are missing; the apostle, however, uses the whole greater number.
13:20 After that he gave [unto them] judges about the space of four hundred and fifty years. This statement seems to conflict with 1Ki 6:1, which assigns 480 years to the period between the coming out of Egypt and the fourth year of the reign of Solomon. This would allow only about 300 years to the period of the Judges. David's reign was forty years, Saul's the same, the period in the wilderness the same, Joshua ruled about twenty-five years, add four years for Solomon, and we have 149 years, which, taken from 480 years, leaves 331 for the time of Judges and Samuel. The apparent discrepancy between Paul and the writer of 1 Kings is removed, however, by the Revised Version, based on the oldest and best Greek text. It changes the place where and after that occurs, so that the passage reads, When he had destroyed the seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land for an inheritance, for about four hundred and fifty years: and after these things (i.e. after the allotment of the land and all before mentioned) he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet. The 450 years, in my judgment, includes the period from the departure out of Egypt to the reign of David, the two greatest eras in Jewish history before Christ.
13:14-31 When we come together to worship God, we must do it, not only by prayer and praise, but by the reading and hearing of the word of God. The bare reading of the Scriptures in public assemblies is not enough; they should be expounded, and the people exhorted out of them. This is helping people in doing that which is necessary to make the word profitable, to apply it to themselves. Every thing is touched upon in this sermon, which might best prevail with Jews to receive and embrace Christ as the promised Messiah. And every view, however short or faint, of the Lord's dealings with his church, reminds us of his mercy and long-suffering, and of man's ingratitude and perverseness. Paul passes from David to the Son of David, and shows that this Jesus is his promised Seed; a Saviour to do that for them, which the judges of old could not do, to save them from their sins, their worst enemies. When the apostles preached Christ as the Saviour, they were so far from concealing his death, that they always preached Christ crucified. Our complete separation from sin, is represented by our being buried with Christ. But he rose again from the dead, and saw no corruption: this was the great truth to be preached.
