And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul,
The miracles were signs of God's power alone, with Paul merely the instrument through which He worked. Those Papists who treat his handkerchiefs as relics to be kissed and venerated are blockish; Paul chose worthless things deliberately so that superstition could not arise and Christ's glory would remain unclouded.
AI summary
Paul is here very busy at Ephesus to do good. I. He begins, as usual, in the Jews' synagogue, and makes the first offer of the gospel to them, that he might gather in the lost sheep of the house of Israel, who were now scattered upon the mountains. Observe, 1. Where he preached to them: in their synagogue (Act 19:8), as Christ used to do.
Commenting on Acts 19:8-12
Then certain of the vagabond Jews,.... Who strolled about from place to place, pretending to tell fortunes, cure diseases by charms, and dispossess devils by conjuration, and therefore are called as follows, exorcists; such there were among the Jews, as Justin Martyr observes (h), who adjured by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: these took upon them to call over them which had evil...