The three months period was probably the winter season. Paul tried to avoid sea travel during wintertime (see 27.12; 28.11; Titus 3.12). It was customary for many Jews to travel back to Jerusalem each year to celebrate the Passover, and for this purpose there were many pilgrim ships which carried them from the cities of this region to Jerusalem. It was probably Paul’s intention to go by one of these ships, but since it would have been easy for the Jews aboard ship to stir up others against Paul and to have had him killed, he decided it would be better to travel by land.

In some languages the relationship between the two clauses involving preparations to go to Syria and the discovery that the Jews were plotting against him must be somewhat altered in their temporal relationships—for example, “while he was getting ready to go to Syria, he discovered that the Jews…” or “he was getting ready to go to Syria, but then he discovered that the Jews….”

In this type of context discovered may be rendered in some languages as “heard” or “learned from some people.” In most receptor languages one cannot translate this term discovered by the same word which may be used to describe the finding of some unusual object.

Plotting against him may simply be translated as “planning to kill him.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Acts of the Apostles. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1972. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .