Acts 23 - Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible

Acts 22:30 to Acts 23:10. Paul Before the Sanhedrin. This is a difficult section, and does not advance the action. Unless the proceedings took place in Greek, the tribune would scarcely secure his object of learning the charge against Paul; it is strange that he should have called a meeting of the Sanhedrin for this purpose, which could be reached otherwise. Paul is released from his chains and faces the court without them, and without the presence of military. He begins a speech which was to explain his position, but is rudely interrupted; he has not been asked to speak, and might be regarded as treating the court without respect. He retorts with applying an abusive epithet to the High Priest who had ordered the interruption. The and before his question (Acts 23:3 b) expresses surprise or indignation. Ananias, son of Nedebæ us, was High Priest from about A.D. 47; Paul might not have seen him before, but he was presiding at the meeting, judging him, Paul says. There is a screw loose in the narrative, and the appeal (Acts 22:5) to Exodus 22:28 does not make it tight. Paul, however, is not silenced; he calls out aloud the subject of difference between the two great parties, which they no doubt ignored at their meetings, thus playing the enfant terrible among those grave and reverend men. It is on account of the hope and the resurrection of the dead that he is being judged, he says. He was not being judged at all (Acts 22:30), and if he was, the charge against him was not that he believed in the Resurrection, but that he subverted the authority of Moses among the Jews of the Dispersion (Acts 21:21). The diversion, however, is very successful; the meeting is at once in an uproar. Some of the Pharisees actually defend Paul; they find the story he tells (ch. 22) of his vision credible. He may have been visited by a spirit or an angel, and then the conclusion is left to be imagined. The tribune fears that in spite of this Paul will be torn in pieces; the military are to come and remove him. The author does not state his conclusion as to the charge here, but see Acts 22:29.

Acts 23:11. The Lord Appears to Paul. This section is independent of the preceding scene; the testifying spoken of is in ch. 22, and the vision would stand quite well after Acts 22:29. The idea of Rome was in his mind (see Acts 19:21); the Lord makes his imprisonment appear as a road there, which it was.

Jewish Plot: Removal of Paul. The Jews propose what the tribune, in Acts 22:30 to Acts 23:10, has already done on his own initiative; here we are on historical ground. The hated person being removed from their power, they plan an assassination. Forty of them make themselves a curse (so literally), i.e. they are to be accursed if they do not carry out their purpose; and they are to fast till it is done. For this end they apply to the high priests and elders to get the tribune to bring Paul down to a meeting for a further inquiry. No doubt is entertained apparently that the leaders will countenance such a plot. The tribune, who is well disposed to Paul since he discovered his citizenship, at once removes him from danger; but 470 men seem a large force for the purpose. Lysias-' motive in all this apparatus was his fear that the Jews might get hold of Paul and kill him, and he be accused of corruption in letting them do so. The start is ordered at 9 P.M., and Paul is to be got through to Felix at Cæ sarea. On Felix, see p. 610.

Letter of Claudius Lysias to Felix. Felix is addressed as most excellent (so Luke 1:3; Acts 26:25), a title of courtesy applied to proconsuls, officers of rank, and private persons. Lysias allows himself to say that he had assisted Paul because he had heard he was a Roman, and that he had done nothing worthy of bonds (cf. the two chains, Acts 21:33; Acts 22:30). An official sending a prisoner to a higher court might specify the charge (cf. Acts 25:27); and Lysias takes credit for having investigated the point, and for having found that the charge involved no legal offence. This, even if true, does not prove that the Sanhedrin scene (Acts 22:30 to Acts 23:10) had really taken place; Lysias had other means of satisfying himself.

Arrival at Cæ sarea. Antipatris (p. 28), a Greek town even the name of which has disappeared, was where Ras-el-Ain is now, on the road from Lydda to Cæ sarea, 40 miles from Jerusalem, 25 from Cæ sarea. 40 miles are more than a night's march for infantry. The procurator asks the necessary question as to the province of the prisoner (cf. Luke 23:6 f.), and undertakes to hear the case when the prosecutors arrive. Of the præ torium (mg.) of Herod at Cæ sarea nothing is known.