26 Then Paul took the men, and the next day purifying himself with them entered into the temple, to signify the accomplishment of the days of purification, until that an offering should be offered for every one of them. 27 And when the seven days were almost ended, the Jews which were of Asia, when they saw him in the temple, stirred up all the people, and laid hands on him, 28 Crying out, Men of Israel, help: This is the man, that teacheth all men every where against the people, and the law, and this place: and further brought Greeks also into the temple, and hath polluted this holy place. 29 (For they had seen before with him in the city Trophimus an Ephesian, whom they supposed that Paul had brought into the temple.) 30 And all the city was moved, and the people ran together: and they took Paul, and drew him out of the temple: and forthwith the doors were shut. (Acts 21:26-30 KJV)
William Burkitt’s Commentary
Observe here, 1. That at the instance and importunity of his friends, St. Paul is persuaded to purify himself in the temple; partly to gain upon the affections of the believing Jews, who were still zealous of the law; and partly to confute the false aspersions of them that reported him in Jerusalem to be against all ceremonial observances. If any had grudged that, after the coming of the gospel, so much cost should be bestowed on the law, and say, with murmuring Judas, To what purpose was this waste? the law might truly answer with our Saviour, and say, “He did it for my burial and for the more solemn interment of me.”
Observe, 2. How blind was the zeal, and how furious the rage, of the unbelieving Jews, against the apostle! They seek, and because they could not find, they take an occasion to vent their malice upon him; accordingly, they put the whole city of Jerusalem into an uproar, upon a pretence that he had brought Trophimus, a Gentile, into the temple, to profane and pollute it; and in their blind rage, they dragged the apostle out of the temple as a profaner of it.
Well might the apostle say he was in deaths often, 2Co 11:23. He was now in danger to be pulled in pieces by this tumult, and of being made a sacrifice to the fury of the rabble; but God, who never lacks ways or means for the seasonable succour and relief of his faithful servants, in an unexpected manner, and by unthought-of means, rescued the apostle from the jaws of death and danger, as the next verses inform us.