Commentaries:
Barnes' Notes
And he became very hungry - Prom the connection, where it is said that they were making ready, that is, preparing a meal, it would seem that this was the customary hour of dining. The Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans, however, had but two meals, and the first was usually taken about ten or eleven o' clock. This meal usually consisted of fruit, milk, cheese, etc. Their principal meal was about six or seven in the afternoon, at which time they observed their feasts. See Jahn' s Bible. Archaeol. section 145.
He fell into a trance - Greek: an ecstasy, ̓́ ekstasis , fell upon him. In Acts 11:5, Peter says that in a trance he saw a vision. The word "trance, or ecstasy," denotes "a state of mind when the attention is absorbed in a particular train of thought, so that the external senses are partially or entirely suspended." It is a high species of abstraction from external objects, when the mind becomes forgetful of surrounding things, and is fixed solely on its own thoughts, so that appeals to the external senses do not readily rouse it. The soul seems to have passed out of the body, and to be conversant only with spiritual essences. Thus, Balaam is said to have seen the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance Numbers 24:4, Numbers 24:16; thus Paul, in praying in the temple, fell into a trance Acts 22:17; and perhaps a similar state is described in II Corinthians 12:2. This effect seems to be caused by so intense and absorbing a train of thought as to overcome the senses of the body, or wholly to withdraw the mind from their influence, and to fix it on the unseen object that engrosses it. It is often a high state of reverie, or absence of mind, which Dr. Rush describes as "induced by the stimulus of ideas of absent subjects, being so powerful as to destroy the perception of present objects" ( Diseases of the Mind , p. 310, ed. Philadelphia, 1812). In the case of Peter, however, there was a supernatural influence that drew his attention away from present objects.
Other Barnes' Notes entries containing Acts 10:10:
Joel 2:28
Acts 10:12
Acts 11:5-13
Acts 22:17
Revelation 1:10
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