21:28 Hath polluted this holy place. They not only charge him with teaching against Judaism, but with bringing Greeks into the part of the temple where all Gentiles were forbidden to come. The Palestine Exploration Society found in their excavations an inscription that must have been over the passage between the court of the Gentiles and the interior court, where the chambers for Nazarites were, forbidding aliens to pass the balustrade on the penalty of death. Nothing could arouse a greater outburst of fanaticism than the belief that Paul had taken Gentiles within the sacred precincts.
21:28 Against the people - The Jewish nation; and the law - Of Moses; and this place - The temple. Yea, and hath even brought Greeks into the temple - They might come into the outer court. But they imagined Paul had brought then into the inner temple, and had thereby polluted it.
21:27-40 In the temple, where Paul should have been protected as in a place of safety, he was violently set upon. They falsely charged him with ill doctrine and ill practice against the Mosaic ceremonies. It is no new thing for those who mean honestly and act regularly, to have things laid to their charge which they know not and never thought of. It is common for the wise and good to have that charged against them by malicious people, with which they thought to have obliged them. God often makes those a protection to his people, who have no affection to them, but only have compassion for sufferers, and regard to the public peace. And here see what false, mistaken notions of good people and good ministers, many run away with. But God seasonably interposes for the safety of his servants, from wicked and unreasonable men; and gives them opportunities to speak for themselves, to plead for the Redeemer, and to spread abroad his glorious gospel.
