“Then returned they unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is from Jerusalem a sabbath day’s journey.”
Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, which is just over a Sabbath day's walk from the city — the proximity (about 2,000 cubits, a Sabbath day's walk) shows Jesus ascended in sight of the Holy City, the center of God's redemptive drama. Luke's precision grounds the narrative in geographic and legal reality; the reference to Sabbath law is incidental but shows the Jewish context of the earliest church. The return to Jerusalem obeys Jesus' command and prepares for Pentecost.
Church Fathers on Acts 1:12
Then returned they, it is said: namely, when they had heard. For they could not have borne it, if the angel had not (ὑ περέθετο) referred them to another Coming. It seems to me, that it was also on a sabbath-day that these things took place; for he would not thus have specified the distance, saying, from the mount called Olivet, which is from Jerusalem a sabbath day's journey, unless they were then going on the sabbath-day a certain definite distance. And when they had come…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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