(And when they heard that he spake in the Hebrew tongue to them, they kept the more silence: and he saith,)
2. That he spake Hebrew. This is indeed an usual thing, that when men which speak diverse languages are together, we hear those more willingly who speak our own language; but the Jews were moved with another peculiar cause, because they imagined that Paul was offended “Ex professo infensum,” professedly hostile to.
Look at his composure: a mob raging, false charges flying, and yet not a tremor, not a flash of anger. He answers with respect to men who deserve none, proving that whoever would do good must not provoke. He had learned what most of us have not: that honor spoken to the unreasonable often opens ears that insult would seal shut.
AI summary
Commenting on Acts 22:1-2
And when they heard that he spake in the Hebrew tongue to them,.... See Gill on Act 21:40. they kept the more silence; it being their mother tongue, and which they best understood; and which the captain and the Roman soldiers might not so well under stand; and chiefly because the Hellenistic language was not so agreeable to them, nor the Hellenistic Jews, who spoke...