17:10 Under cover of darkness, perhaps for fear of further violence should they be seen, the missionaries were sent off by “the brothers” to Berea, some forty-five miles southwest of Thessalonica. There is no mention of Timothy; he may have stayed in Thessalonica only to catch up with Paul again in Athens (see disc. on v. 16). Berea, which lay at the eastern slopes of Mount Vermion, had been founded in the fifth century B.C. In 168 B.C. it became the capital of one of the republics into which Macedonia was then divided (see disc. on 16:12). Livy described the city of Paul’s day as still a “noble town” (History of Rome 45.30; cf. the description of the Berean Jews in v. 11). Beyond Mount Vermion lay Illyricum, and when Paul wrote in Romans 15:19 of having “fully proclaimed the gospel of Ch…