Acts 19:29-34; 1 Timothy 1:18-20; 2 Timothy 4:14-17
The whole city was filled with confusion: and having caught Gaius and Aristarchus, men of Macedonia, Paul’s companions in travel, they rushed with one accord into the theatre. And when Paul would have entered in unto the people, the disciples suffered him not. And certain of the chief of Asia, which were his friends, sent unto him, desiring him that he would not adventure himself into the theatre. Some therefore cried one thing, and some another: for the assembly was confused; and the more part knew not wherefore they were come together. And they drew Alexander out of the multitude, the Jews putting him forward. And Alexander beckoned with the hand, and would have made his defence unto the people. But when they knew that he was a Jew, all with one voice about the space of two hours cried out, Great is Diana of the Ephesians.
This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare; Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck: Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.
Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works: Of whom be thou ware also; for he hath greatly withstood our words. At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge. Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.
ALEXANDER WHYTE (1836-1921): The first time we come on Alexander he is a Jew of Ephesus, and a clever speaker to an excitable crowd.
JOHN GILL (1697-1771): “And would have made his defence unto the people.”—which looks as if he was a Christian, or at least was charged with being one.
THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): Many writers suppose that this was Alexander the coppersmith, who was one of the most violent judaizing Christians, consequently one of the greatest enemies of Paul, and most in favour with the unbelieving Jews, of any who professed Christianity; and, if so, no wonder that the Jews should be desirous of his making his oration to the people.
ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): Alexander was brought forward on this occasion by the Jews, that he might make an oration to the multitude, in order to exculpate the Jews, who were often by the heathens confounded with the Christians; and to cast the whole blame of the uproar upon Paul and his party. Alexander was probably chosen because he was an able speaker.
ALEXANDER WHYTE: Alexander had this temptation, that he was fitted by nature to be much more than a mere coppersmith, he was so clever and so captivating with his tongue. Unless you are a man of a very single heart and a very sound conscience, it is a great temptation to you to be able in a time of public commotion to speak so as to sway the swaying multitude and to command their applause and their support. You rise on a wave of popularity at such a season, and you make use of your popularity for your own chief end in life.
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Ah, it is an easy thing to float with the tide of popular opinion.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): There are, as you know, two kinds of popularity: the one, when we hunt after favour from motives of ambition and the desire of pleasing; the other, when by fairness and moderation we gain their esteem so as to make them willing to by taught by us.
JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): If opposition has hurt many, popularity has wounded more. It is like walking upon ice—while human nature remains in its present state, there will be almost the same connection between popularity and pride, as between fire and gunpowder: they cannot meet without an explosion, at least not unless the gunpowder is kept very damp. So, unless the Lord is constantly moistening our hearts by the influences of His Spirit, popularity will soon set us ablaze. You will hardly find a person who has been exposed to this fiery trial, without suffering loss.
JOHN CALVIN: It is uncertain whether this be that Alexander of whom Paul makes mention elsewhere, yet the conjecture seemeth to me allowable. He mentions both of them to Timothy as persons whom he knew. For my part, I have no doubt that this is the same Alexander that is mentioned by Luke, and who attempted, but without success, to quell the commotion.
JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Alexander the coppersmith, who was here near to martyrdom, yet afterwards made shipwreck of the faith, and did the apostle much evil.
JOHN CALVIN: What are the “many evils” which Paul complains that Alexander brought upon him?
ADAM CLARKE: “He hath greatly withstood our words.” He had been a constant opposer of the Christian doctrines.
JOHN TRAPP: He greatly withstood not Paul’s person only, but his preachings.
ALEXANDER WHYTE: Alexander followed Paul about wherever he went, poisoning the minds and the hearts of all men to whom his tongue had access. One of our latest and best authorities thinks that Alexander even followed Paul to Rome, and did his best to poison Nero and his court still more against Paul.
MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): What harm he did to Paul, and where, whether at Ephesus or Rome, it is not said.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Timothy had travelled many years with Paul. He knew about the “evil” that Alexander had done previously at Ephesus, and Paul had informed him of Alexander’s excommunication from the church in his first epistle, which had been written either from Macedonia or Laodicea. However, Paul’s second epistle to Timothy was written later from Rome during his second imprisonment, in which Paul was pleading with Timothy to “do thy diligence to come shortly unto me” in Rome “before winter,” 2 Timothy 4:9,21. And the context and tone of Paul’s specific warning to beware of Alexander, suggests that the apostle was speaking of specific evils that Alexander had done to him more recently in Rome, the details of which Timothy did not yet know about.
ANDREW MILLER (1810-1883): The precise charge now made against the apostle, for which he was arrested, we have no means of ascertaining. It may have been simply on the charge of being a Christian. The general persecution against the Christians was now raging with the utmost severity…He was now treated as an evil-doer, as a common criminal—“Wherein I suffer trouble, as an evil doer, even unto bonds,”—and very different to the bonds of his first imprisonment, when he dwelt in his own hired house, Acts 28:30. Alexander had evidently something to do with his arrest. He was either one of his accusers, or, at least, a witness against him. “Alexander the coppersmith,” he writes to Timothy, “did me much evil,”—exhibited much evil mindedness towards me.
THOMAS COKE: Some years before this, Paul had delivered over Alexander unto Satan.
ANDREW MILLER: Alexander may now have sought his revenge by laying information against Paul in Rome.
MATTHEW POOLE: Some think that this signified a peculiar power granted the apostles, God confirming regular excommunications, by letting Satan loose upon persons excommunicated to torture them; but we find nothing of this in Scripture. I rather think the sense is no more than, whom I excommunicated, and cast out of the church, making them of the world again, as the world is opposed to the church, and kingdom of Christ, which, for the greater terror, the apostle expresses this notion of being “delivered to Satan,” who is called “the god of this world”—that “they may learn not to blaspheme:”—not that I might ruin and undo them, but that I might amend them by this exercise of discipline, teaching them to take heed of spreading damnable and pernicious errors to the reproach of God.
THOMAS COKE: But the punishment so inflicted had not reclaimed him. And if Alexander was incorrigible, the apostle might justly denounce some greater curse upon him, or rather, foretell his future and final punishment: “the Lord reward him according to his works.”
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): It is a prophetical denunciation of the just judgment of God that would befall him.
THOMAS COKE: There is not in it the least degree of revenge on Paul’s part: for the apostle leaves it to the great Searcher of Hearts, to determine what Alexander’s works had been, and what the principle was from which they had proceeded; and then he foretells, or petitions, that God would reward him, according as God Himself knew his works had been: which was really no other than foretelling, that the God and Judge of the earth will do right, or praying him to do so.
