To tempt the Spirit of the Lord — i.e., to try, or test, whether the Spirit that dwelt in the Apostles was really a discerner of the secrets of men’s hearts. The “Spirit of the Lord” is probably used in its Old Testament sense, as the Spirit of Jehovah. The combination is rare in the New Testament, occurring only in 2 Corinthians 3:17, but is common in the Old, as in Isaiah 61:1 (quoted in Luke 4:18); 1 Kings 22:24; 2 Kings 2:16.
Behold, the feet of them.... — In this instance the coming judgment is foretold, and the announcement tended to work out its own completion. Here, to all the shame and agony that had fallen on Ananias, there was now added the bitter thought of her husband’s death as in some sense caused by her, inasmuch as she might have prevented the crime that led to it. The prophetic insight given to St. Peter taught him that the messengers, whose footsteps he already heard, had another task of a like nature before them.