Willing to do the Jews a pleasure. — See Note on Acts 24:27. The invitation was in itself plausible enough. It practically admitted that there was no evidence on the last head of the accusation of which he, as procurator, need take cognizance. It offered the prisoner a trial before his own national tribunal, with the presence of the procurator as a check upon violence and injustice. It is manifest from St. Paul’s answer that this was practically what Festus meant. The proposed trial would, he says, not be before Caesar’s judgment seat, and he, for his part, preferred the secular to the ecclesiastical tribunal.
Related Commentaries of Acts 25:9
Acts 25:9
9 But Festus, willing to do the Jews a pleasure, answered Paul, and said, Wilt thou go up to Jerusalem, and there be judged of these things before me?