Would not believe is literally “disobeyed,” but this word is used throughout Acts and elsewhere in the New Testament as the opposite of “to believe.” The phrase would not believe may be rendered as “refused to believe in Jesus.”

In the Greek sentence structure their feelings (literally “the souls of the Gentiles”) is actually the object of both verbs stirred up and turned … against. The verb translated turned … against literally means “mistreat” or “treat badly” (see 7.6), and when used with “soul” as its object means “stir up feelings (in a negative way).” Some translators render the Greek expression as “poisoned their minds against.” Some commentators believe that the verbs in this verse should be taken in the sense of “began to” inasmuch as the apostles stayed for a long while and did not really have any difficulty until the Jewish and Gentile leaders managed to get together (see v. 5).

The equivalent of turned their feelings against may be in some languages “caused them to be angry with.” In some instances the equivalent is highly idiomatic, for example, “caused their hearts to be hot against” or “caused them to burn against.”

The expression the brothers may be difficult to render in this particular context, since it might suggest that Paul and Barnabas were brothers in a physical sense. The meaning of course is “fellow believers,” and this is the way in which it must sometimes be translated in order to avoid an incorrect implication.

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 .