Acts 23:12,13 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

And when it was day, certain of the Jews Being exceedingly provoked that Paul had been thus rescued from the council; bound themselves under a curse Such execrable vows were not uncommon among the Jews. And if they were prevented from accomplishing what they had vowed, it was an easy matter, as Dr. Lightfoot has shown from the Talmud, to obtain absolution from their rabbis; saying Vowing; That they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul Imprecating the heaviest curses upon themselves, their souls, bodies, and families, if they did not kill him, and so speedily, that they would not eat or drink till they had done it. What a complication of wickedness is here! To design to kill an innocent man, a good and useful man, a man that had done them no harm, but was willing and desirous to do them all the good he could, was going in the way of Cain most manifestly, and showed them to be of their father the devil, who was a murderer from the beginning. Yet, as if this had been a small matter, 1st, They bound themselves to it in a most awful manner. To incline to do evil is bad, and to intend and purpose to do it is worse; but to engage to do it, especially in such a manner as these Jews here did, is worst of all. It is entering into covenant with the devil; it is swearing allegiance to the prince of darkness; it is bidding defiance to a holy and just God. 2d, They bound one another to it, even more than forty of them, and thus did all they could, not only to secure the damnation of their own souls, but of the souls of all them whom they drew into the association. 3d, They showed a great contempt of the providence of God, and a presumption upon it, in that they bound themselves to do a thing, and that so dreadfully wicked, within so short a space of time as they could continue fasting; without any proviso or reserve for the disposal of an overruling providence; without saying, or thinking, “If the Lord will.” But, indeed, with what face could they insert a proviso for the permission of God's providence, when they knew what they were about to do was directly contrary to the prohibitions of his word? 4th, They showed a great contempt of their own souls and bodies; of their souls, in imprecating a curse upon them if they did not proceed in this desperate enterprise; thus throwing themselves upon a most woful dilemma! for God certainly meets them with his curse if they proceed in their design, and they desire he would if they do not! and of their own bodies too, (for wilful sinners are the destroyers of both,) in tying themselves up from the necessary supports of life till they had accomplished a thing, which they could never lawfully, and perhaps not possibly, accomplish.