Acts 23:1-5 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

And Paul, earnestly beholding the council At whose bar he was placed; manifesting a clear conscience by his very countenance; and likewise waiting to see whether any of them was minded to ask him any question; said, Men and brethren Though I am brought before you as a malefactor, to be examined and judged by you, I have the comfort of being conscious to myself that I have lived in all good conscience before God The Searcher of hearts; until this day Whatever men may think or say of me. He speaks chiefly of the time since he became a Christian. For none questioned him concerning what he had been before. And yet, even in his unconverted state, although he was in error, yet he had acted from conscience before God. And the high-priest Ananias Conscious of his inveterate enmity to Paul, and of the steps he had openly taken for his destruction, thinking himself insulted by such a solemn declaration of his innocence; commanded them that stood by him At the bar; to smite him on the mouth For what he represented as a most insolent assertion; which was accordingly done. Then said Paul Being carried away by a sudden and prophetic impulse; God, τυπτειν σε μελλει, is about to smite thee, thou whited wall Fair without; full of dirt and rubbish within. And he might well be so termed, not only as he committed this outrage while gravely sitting on the tribunal of justice, but also as, at the same time that he stood high in the esteem of the citizens, he cruelly defrauded the priests of their legal subsistence, so that some of them even perished for want. And God did remarkably smite him; for about five years after this, his house being reduced to ashes, in a tumult begun by his own son, he was besieged in the royal palace; where, having hid himself in an old aqueduct, he was dragged out and miserably slain. And they that stood by Being greatly offended; said, Revilest thou God's high-priest Dost thou, who pretendest to so much religion, presume impiously to revile the most sacred person in our nation, and consequently in the whole world? Then said Paul, I wist not, brethren Ουκ ηδει οτι εστιν αρχιερευς, I knew not, or, had not known; that he is the high-priest That is, (as many understand him,) he did not advert to it, in the prophetic transport of his mind, that Ananias was the high-priest. But he does not say that his not adverting to it proceeded from the power of the Spirit coming upon him, as knowing that they were not able to bear it. But is it not more probable that his positive assertion here was the exact truth; and that, in fact, he did not know Ananias to be the high-priest? For, as Dr. Macknight justly observes, “Both the Roman governors and the Jewish princes had, for some time past, been in use to sell the high-priesthood to the best bidder; and sometimes to depose the person in office, that they might have it to sell anew. Wherefore, as Paul was but lately come from Greece, after five years' absence, he may very well be supposed to have been ignorant of Ananias's dignity, notwithstanding he might know him personally. It is alleged, indeed, that by his dress and seat in the council, Paul might have known Ananias to be the high-priest. But that does not seem probable; because, having looked steadfastly on the council at his first coming in, he would, by such an excuse, have exposed himself to ridicule, if Ananias could have been known to be the high-priest, either by his dress, or by his seat in the council.”