The multitude; generality and unanimity alone cannot authorize opinions or practices. Rent off their clothes; Paul's and Silas's clothes, to disgrace them the more, or in order unto their being scourged; though some think that the magistrates rent their own clolhes, in detestation of the pretended blasphemy which was laid to Paul's charge, as the high priest did, Mark 14:63.
Related Commentaries of Acts 16:22
Acts 16:22
22 And the multitude rose up together against them: and the magistrates rent off their clothes, and commanded to beat them.