CHAPTER 23

(A.D. 60)

THE SANHEDRIN

¹And Paul, earnestly beholding the Council (evidently speaks of all seventy-one members of the Sanhedrin, with the High Priest Ananias serving as its President), said, Men and Brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day (means that whatever he had been doing, he had thought it right at the time, whether true or not).

²And the High Priest Ananias commanded them who stood by him to smite him on the mouth (this man would have hated Paul; history records he was appointed about nine years before this through political influence; he ruled like a tyrant in Jerusalem, and was a glutton according to the Jewish Talmud; Zealots assassinated him in A.D. 66 for his pro-Roman sympathies).

³Then said Paul unto him, God shall smite you, you whited wall (in effect, says, you whitewashed wall, meaning that the whitewash covered a black heart): for you sit to judge me after the Law, and command me to be smitten contrary to the Law? (This presents Paul knowing the Law of Moses to a far greater degree than any of these members of the Sanhedrin.)

⁴And they who stood by said, Do you revile Gods High Priest? (Paul did not know this man was the High Priest.)

⁵Then said Paul, I did not know, Brethren, that he was the High Priest (it was very difficult at that time for a visitor to Jerusalem, as Paul was, to know who was High Priest; the Romans made and unmade them at their pleasure, in addition to those made and unmade by the Sanhedrin; in other words, the High Priest was no longer a son of Aaron, as Scripturally they should have been): for it is written, You shall not speak evil of the Ruler of your people (Ex. 22:28).

⁶But when Paul perceived that the one part were Sadducees, and the other Pharisees (we arent told how he came about this information), he cried out in the Council, Men and Brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee (expresses the party with which Paul had been associated before his conversion, and his Father having been the same): of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question (the whole Christian Faith is built around Christ, His Death on the Cross, and His Bodily Resurrection; without Faith in both, men are lost).

⁷And when he had so said, there arose a dissension between the Pharisees and the Sadducees: and the multitude was divided (speaks of the Sanhedrin itself, but typifies the majority of the Church world presently).

⁸For the Sadducees say that there is no Resurrection, neither Angel, nor spirit (they were the modernists of that present time): but the Pharisees confess both (they were the fundamentalists of that time, which means to profess belief in all the Bible).

⁹And there arose a great cry: and the Scribes who were of the Pharisees part arose, and strove, saying, We find no evil in this man (proclaims the situation being decided on the basis of Doctrine, and not on Paul personally): but if a spirit or an Angel has spoken to him, let us not fight against God.

¹⁰And when there arose a great dissension, the Chief Captain, fearing lest Paul should have been pulled in pieces of them, commanded the soldiers to go down, and to take him by force from among them, and to bring him into the castle (portrays the fact that the situation had gotten completely out of hand).

¹¹And the night following the Lord stood by him, and said (presents another appearance by Jesus Christ to Paul [Acts 22:8, 14, 18; I Cor. 9:1; 15:8; II Cor. 12:1-4]), Be of good cheer, Paul (evidently, Paul was greatly discouraged at this time, hence the needed admonition given by Christ): for as you have testified of Me in Jerusalem, so must you bear witness also at Rome (this meant that despite the hatred and great efforts of his enemies, the Jews in Jerusalem would not be able to take his life, which they didnt).

THE JEWS

¹²And when it was day, certain of the Jews banded together, and bound themselves under a curse (their curse was a religious curse, which sought to put God in a position where He would have to do their will; their thinking was ridiculous!), saying that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul (such is religion!).

¹³And they were more than forty which had made this conspiracy.

¹⁴And they came to the Chief Priests and Elders, and said, We have bound ourselves under a great curse, that we will eat nothing until we have killed Paul (they now seek to make their efforts official).

¹⁵Now therefore you with the Council signify to the Chief Captain that he bring him down unto you tomorrow, as though you would enquire something more perfectly concerning him: and we, or ever he come near, are ready to kill him (proclaims the depth of infamy to which the religion of the carnal heart can sink cultured and religious people).

THE PLOT DISCOVERED

¹⁶And when Pauls sisters son heard of their lying in wait (presents Pauls Nephew and all we know of his family other than references in Rom. 16:7, 11, 21), he went and entered into the castle, and told Paul (we arent told how he came by this knowledge).

¹⁷Then Paul called one of the Centurions unto him, and said, Bring this young man unto the Chief Captain: for he has a certain thing to tell him.

¹⁸So he (the Centurion) took him (Pauls Nephew), and brought him to the Chief Captain, and said, Paul the prisoner called me unto him, and prayed me to bring this young man unto you, who has something to say unto you.

¹⁹Then the Chief Captain took him by the hand, and went with him aside privately, and asked him, What is that you have to tell me? (This portrays an honest effort on the Chief Captains part to obtain the Truth in all these matters.)

²⁰And he said, The Jews have agreed to desire you that you would bring down Paul tomorrow into the Council, as though they would enquire something of him more perfectly.

²¹But do not thou yield unto them: for there lie in wait for him of them more than forty men, which have bound themselves with an oath, that they will neither eat nor drink till they have killed him: and now are they ready, looking for a promise from you (a plot to which the Tribune would probably have innocently agreed had the young man not warned him; in fact, what the Jews were doing was totally against Roman Law).

²²So the Chief Captain then let the young man depart, and charged him, See you tell no man that you have showed these things to me (it is believed, although not stated, that the young man went and related to Paul his ready acceptance by the Tribune, which no doubt encouraged Paul greatly).

CAESAREA

²³And he called unto him two Centurions, saying, Make ready two hundred soldiers to go to Caesarea, and horsemen threescore and ten (seventy), and spearmen two hundred, at the third hour of the night (9 p.m.);

²⁴And provide them beasts, that they may set Paul on (probably placed the Apostle next to one of the Centurions in the very midst of the force), and bring him safe unto Felix the Governor (not exactly a man of kind disposition to whom Paul must answer).

²⁵And he wrote a letter after this manner:

²⁶Claudius Lysias (the Roman Tribune) un to the most Excellent Governor Felix sends greeting.

²⁷This man was taken of the Jews, and should have been killed of them: then came I with an army, and rescued him, having understood that he was a Roman.

²⁸And when I would have known the cause wherefore they accused him, I brought him forth into their Council (Sanhedrin):

²⁹Whom I perceived to be accused of questions of their Law (Law of Moses), but to have nothing laid to his charge worthy of death or of bonds.

³⁰And when it was told me how that the Jews laid wait for the man, I sent straightway (immediately) to you, and gave commandment to his accusers also to say before you what they had against him. Farewell.

³¹Then the soldiers, as it was commanded them, took Paul, and brought him by night to Antipatris (about forty miles from Jerusalem, with about twenty miles left to Caesarea; the soldiers must have marched without stopping for about fifteen hours).

³²On the morrow they left the horsemen to go with him (the infantry of about four hundred Soldiers returned to Jerusalem, while the Cavalry, consisting of some seventy horsemen, took Paul the balance of the way to Caesarea), and returned to the castle:

³³Who, when they came to Caesarea, and delivered the epistle to the Governor (the letter written by the Roman Tribune), presented Paul also before him.

³⁴And when the Governor had read the letter, he asked of what province he was (the home of Paul). And when he understood that he was of Cilicia (this automatically gave the Governor jurisdiction; the fact that Paul was a Roman citizen from this important Province, meant that Felix could not ignore him);

³⁵I will hear you (he speaks to Paul), said he, when your accusers are also come (pertained to members or representatives of the Sanhedrin). And he commanded him to be kept in Herods Judgment Hall (a part of the lavish Palace built by Herod the Great; it served as the Capitol Building as well as the official residence of the Roman Governors; it evidently had some prison cells within its confines).