1I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and he said, “Strike the tops of the pillars, that the thresholds may shake. Break them in pieces on the head of all of them. I will kill the last of them with the sword. Not one of them will flee away. Not one of them will escape. 2Though they dig into Sheol, there my hand will take them; and though they climb up to heaven, there I will bring them down. 3Though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out from there; and though they be hidden from my sight in the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent, and it will bite them. 4Though they go into captivity before their enemies, there I will command the sword, and it will kill them. I will set my eyes on them for evil, and not for good. 5For the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, is he who touches the land and it melts, and all who dwell in it will mourn; and it will rise up wholly like the River, and will sink again, like the River of Egypt. 6It is he who builds his rooms in the heavens, and has founded his vault on the earth; he who calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out on the surface of the earth—Yahweh is his name. 7Are you not like the children of the Ethiopians to me, children of Israel?” says Yahweh. “Haven’t I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir? 8Behold, the eyes of the Lord Yahweh are on the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the surface of the earth, except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,” says Yahweh. 9“For behold, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all the nations as grain is sifted in a sieve, yet not the least kernel will fall on the earth. 10All the sinners of my people will die by the sword, who say, ‘Evil won’t overtake nor meet us.’ 11In that day I will raise up the tent of David who is fallen and close up its breaches, and I will raise up its ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old, 12that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations who are called by my name,” says Yahweh who does this.
13“Behold, the days come,” says Yahweh,
“that the plowman shall overtake the reaper,
and the one treading grapes him who sows seed;
and sweet wine will drip from the mountains,
and flow from the hills.
14I will bring my people Israel back from captivity,
and they will rebuild the ruined cities, and inhabit them;
and they will plant vineyards, and drink wine from them.
They shall also make gardens,
and eat their fruit.
15I will plant them on their land,
and they will no more be plucked up out of their land which I have given them,”
says Yahweh your God.
The city of Paphos occurs twice in the Bible (Acts 13:6, 13). Paphos is located on the western shore of the island of Cyprus (biblical Kittim, cf. Amos 9:7). According to legend, Cinyras, the first king of Paphos, named the city after his mother. The apostle Paul, along with Barnabas and John Mark (Acts 13:2, 16) traveled “through the island” on his first missionary journey (Acts 13:1—14:28) to Paphos, arriving around the spring of 48 A.D. (Acts 13:1-14:28).
The Paphos to which Luke refers is actually New Paphos, which was built in the fourth century B.C. (the older city is approximately ten miles away). The seaport of the original Paphos eventually became the dominant population center, thus forming New Paphos. New Paphos was made the capital of Cyprus under the Ptolemies, and was so until the fourth century A.D. The entire island of Cyprus, and with it the city of New Paphos, was annexed to Rome in 68 B.C., and became a Roman senatorial province in 22 B.C.
The worship of Aphrodite, the promiscuous Greek goddess of love, is particularly associated with the city. In Greek mythology, Aphrodite (Roman "Venus") emerges from the ocean on the beach adjacent to the original Paphos. Accordingly, Paphos became a center of Aphrodite worship, which included temple prostitution, in the ancient world.
Against the backdrop of entrenched paganism, Paphos was also the site of active Jewish synagogues at the time of Paul's arrival (cf. 1 Macc. 15:16-23; Ant. 13:284-287). Paul's powerful ministry resulted in the first assemblage of believers in Jesus the Messiah on the island. Through his standard modus operandi of missions, Paul introduced ethnic and proselyte Jews to Jesus by first preaching in the synagogues (Acts 13:15). The salient ministry of Paul resulted in polarization. Paul was resisted by "Bar-jesus" (Acts 13:6, literally Aramaic for "son of Joshua" or Jesus, a name not uncommon in the era; also known as Elymas in 13:8), a Jewish sorcerer, perhaps along the lines of Sceva (Acts 19:13-19) or the Samaritan magician Simon Magus (Acts 8:9-24). Paul's instituting temporary blindness upon the Jewish magician demonstrated that God's power is truly in Paul's Gospel (cf. Rom 1:16).
When Paul came to Cyprus, Acts 13.6 says that he traveled “through the island” to “new” Paphos, where the Roman proconsul was stationed, which agrees with Luke’s account of Sergius Paulus summoning Paul and Barnabas. As the governor appointed by the Roman senate over Cyprus (13:7), Sergius Paulus, described as an "intelligent" man personally and officially, is in the middle of the conflict of Bar-jesus and Paul. Sergius Paulus was a wise Roman (Acts 13:7) who was open to the Gospel (Acts 13:7). He may have been the first Roman civil ruler converted to Christ.
In 2000 Italian archaeologists working at Paphos discovered the fragments of a first or second-century marble inscription that they think may refer to Paul. The fragment was found in what is believed to be a first or second century Christian church and reads, “…los …osto…” They argue the original read “Paulos Apostlos.”1 If this is correct, it is a very early archaeological evidence of Paul’s presence on the island. Additional archaeological excavations have revealed architecture dating to the Roman era, including an odeon (musical theater), an agora (marketplace or ancient open air mall), a temple, a theater, and two palatial villas (one of which may have been the Roman governor's palace).
Judith Harris, “Putting Paul on the Map: Apostle’s Name found on Cyprus Inscription,” Biblical Archaeology Review, Vol 26, No. 1 (Jan/Feb 2000) 12-14. Online: http://members.bib-arch.org/publication.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=26&Issue=1&ArticleID=7 (accessed April 23, 2010). ↩︎