8:5

Philip: According to Ac 8:1, “all except the apostles were scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria.” Therefore, the Philip mentioned here is not the apostle Philip. (Mt 10:3; Ac 1:13) Rather, it is apparently the Philip who was among the “seven reputable men” appointed to organize the daily distribution of food among the Greek-speaking and Hebrew-speaking Christian widows in Jerusalem. (Ac 6:1-6) After the events recorded in Acts chapter 8, Philip is mentioned just once more, at Ac 21:8, as “Philip the evangelizer.”​—See study note on Ac 21:8.

the city: Or, according to some manuscripts, “a city.” This is apparently referring to the main city of the Roman district of Samaria. The name Samaria originally referred to the capital city of the ten-tribe kingdom of Israel as well as to the entire territory of that kingdom. Samaria was the capital until that kingdom was overthrown by the Assyrians in 740 B.C.E. The city, however, remained throughout Roman times, and in Jesus’ day, Samaria was also the name of the Roman district that lay between Galilee in the N and Judea in the S. (See Glossary, “Samaria.”) Herod the Great rebuilt the city of Samaria and renamed it Sebaste in honor of Roman Emperor Augustus. (The name Sebaste is a feminine Greek form of the Latin name Augustus.) The present-day Arabic name, Sabastiya, preserves the name Herod gave it.​—See App. B10.