Acts 5:17,18 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Then the high-priest rose up Never did any good work go on with any hope of success, but it met with opposition; for they that are bent to do evil cannot be reconciled to them who make it their business to do good. Satan, the destroyer of mankind, ever was, and ever will be, an adversary to those who are men's benefactors. And it would have been strange, if the apostles had been suffered to go on thus teaching and healing, and had received no check. In these and the following verses we have the malice of hell and the grace of Heaven struggling about them; the one to make them cease from this good work, the other to animate them in it. The high-priest, Annas or Caiaphas, was the ringleader in the opposition made to them: he rose up As it were, with awakened and renewed fury; and all they that were with him His friends and associates; for they saw their wealth and dignity, their power and tyranny, that is, their all at stake, and inevitably lost, if the spiritual and heavenly doctrine of Christ should gain ground and prevail among the people. Which is the sect of the Sadducees A goodly company for the priest! The Sadducees were most forward to join with the high-priest in this persecution, having a particular enmity to the gospel of Christ, because it attested and confirmed the doctrine of the invisible and eternal world, the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the body, and the future state, which they denied. And were filled with indignation Greek, ζηλου, with zeal, rather; namely, bitter, persecuting zeal against the cause of Christ: for it is not strange, if men of no religion be bigoted in their opinions against true and pure religion. When they heard and saw how the people flocked to the apostles, and how reputable they were become, they were exasperated to the last degree, and rose up in a passion, as men who could no longer bear such proceedings, and were resolved to oppose them, being vexed at the apostles for preaching the doctrine of Christ, and curing the sick; at the people for hearing them, and bringing the sick to be cured; and at themselves and their own party for suffering this matter to go so far, and not suppressing it at its first rise. Thus are the enemies of Christ and his gospel a torment to themselves! And laid their hands on the apostles Being determined to bring them to another trial before the sanhedrim; and put them in the common prison Where the vilest malefactors were lodged.