Acts 23:3 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

God shall smite thee, thou whited wall, &c.— Alluding to the beautiful outside of some walls which are full of dirt and rubbish within. See on Matthew 23:27 and Luke 11:44. The account which Josephus gives of the character and fate of Ananias, abundantly illustrates this prophetic speech of St. Paul. He might well be called a whited wall, not only as he committed this indecency in violation of the law, (Leviticus 19:15.) while gravely sitting in a sacred character on the tribunal of justice; but also, as at the same time that he carried it plausibly towards the citizens, and stood high in their favour, he most impiously and cruellydefrauded the inferior priests of the assistance which the divine law assigned them; so that some of them even perished for want:—and God did remarkably smite him; for after his own house had been reduced to ashes, in a tumult begun by his own son, he was besieged and taken in the royal palace; where, having in vain attempted to hide himself in an old aqueduct, he was dragged out and slain;—an event which happened five years after this, in the very beginning of the Jewish war.