Hellenists

“Hellenists” is the word Acts uses for Greek-speaking Jews, set beside the “Hebrews.” When the number of the disciples was multiplying, “a complaint arose from the Hellenists against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily service” (Acts 6:1); the apostles had the disciples choose seven men to take charge of this work (Acts 6:2–6). After his conversion, Saul, preaching boldly in Jerusalem, “spoke and disputed against the Hellenists, but they were seeking to kill him” (Acts 9:28–29).

At Antioch, men of Cyprus and Cyrene “spoke to the Hellenists, preaching the Lord Jesus” (Acts 11:20). Here many manuscripts, followed by the ASV and BSB, read Greeks instead, and the setting suggests Gentiles: those scattered before had spoken “to no one except to Jews only” (Acts 11:19), and now “a great number believed and turned to the Lord” (Acts 11:21).