Acts 5:5 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Fell down and gave up the ghost; expired and died. Some instances of God's extraordinary judgments upon sinners were in the beginning of the Jewish church; as upon the man that gathered sticks on the sabbath day, Numbers 15:35, and upon Nadab and Abihu, Leviticus 10:1,2; and so here in the beginning of the Christian church; to be as marks to teach us to shun such sins, and to teach us that the God with whom we have to do is greatly to be feared. And this miraculous way of punishing notorious sinners in the church, was accommodated to such a time, in which magistrates were so far from defending the church, that they themselves were the greatest enemies unto it. And great fear came on all them that heard these things: let others also hear, and fear, and do so no more.