Verse 24 has essentially the same position in the discourse structure as verse 22, which is itself an amplification of the general statement occurring in verse 21b.

The Greek phrase “from Samuel” means “from (the time of) Samuel”; and since it is obvious that Samuel is intended as one of the members of this group the Good News Translation has translated including Samuel.

Since the expression the prophets is not designed to exclude Moses (mentioned in v. 22), it may be necessary to say “and the other prophets.” The syntactic and semantic structure of the first part of verse 24 is awkward for there are two types of apposition following the prophets. First, there is the phrase including Samuel and those who came after him and, second, all of them who had a message. In some languages it is better to take the phrase including Samuel and those who came after him and place it at the end of verse 24, for example, “And the other prophets, that is, all of them who had a message, also announced these present days. These included Samuel and those who came after him.”

The phrase those who came after him may be slightly restructured as “those who lived later than Samuel” or even “those who followed Samuel.”

The clause all of them who had a message may seem rather obscure. The implication is that the message came from God, and it may be necessary to specify this in some instance, for example, “all the prophets who had a message from God” or, in a more direct form, “all the prophets whom God caused to speak.”

The relation between announced and these present days is not easily represented in some languages. One may announce what is going to happen, or announce what has happened, but one does not “announce a day.” Therefore it may be necessary to modify slightly the structure so as to read “also announced what would happen in these present days.” This is a perfectly legitimate specification of components of the term “days,” for here it represents not merely a temporal element but the feature of time at which certain important events took place.

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 .