18 I was ceremonially clean when they found me in the temple courts doing this. There was no crowd with me, nor was I involved in any disturbance.
18 Whereupon certain Jews from Asia found me purified in the temple, neither with multitude, nor with tumult.
18 While I was doing this, they found me purified in the temple, without any crowd or tumult. But some Jews from Asia--
18 It was while making those offerings that they found me quietly at my prayers in the Temple. There was no crowd, there was no disturbance.
18 in the midst of which some Jews from Asia found me purified in the temple, neither with a mob nor with tumult.
18 My accusers saw me in the Temple as I was completing a purification ceremony. There was no crowd around me and no rioting.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Acts 24:18
Commentary on Acts 24:10-21
(Read Acts 24:10-21)
Paul gives a just account of himself, which clears him from crime, and likewise shows the true reason of the violence against him. Let us never be driven from any good way by its having an ill name. It is very comfortable, in worshipping God, to look to him as the God of our fathers, and to set up no other rule of faith or practice but the Scriptures. This shows there will be a resurrection to a final judgment. Prophets and their doctrines were to be tried by their fruits. Paul's aim was to have a conscience void of offence. His care and endeavour was to abstain from many things, and to abound in the exercises of religion at all times; both towards God. and towards man. If blamed for being more earnest in the things of God than our neighbours, what is our reply? Do we shrink from the accusation? How many in the world would rather be accused of any weakness, nay, even of wickedness, than of an earnest, fervent feeling of love to the Lord Jesus Christ, and of devotedness to his service! Can such think that He will confess them when he comes in his glory, and before the angels of God? If there is any sight pleasing to the God of our salvation, and a sight at which the angels rejoice, it is, to behold a devoted follower of the Lord, here upon earth, acknowledging that he is guilty, if it be a crime, of loving the Lord who died for him, with all his heart, and soul, and mind, and strength. And that he will not in silence see God's word despised, or hear his name profaned; he will rather risk the ridicule and the hatred of the world, than one frown from that gracious Being whose love is better than life.