Page 297 - Demo

THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 
believe them. More than forty of them are lying in wait for him; they have bound themselves by oath not to eat or drink until they have killed him. They are now ready and only wait for your consent.” 22As the commander dismissed the young man he directed him, “Tell no one that you gave me this information.”
23Then he summoned two of the centurions and said, “Get two hundred soldiers ready to go to Caesarea by nine o’clock tonight,* along with seventy horsemen and two hundred auxiliaries. 24Provide mounts for Paul to ride and give him safe conduct to Felix the governor.” 25Then he wrote a letter with this content: 26* “Claudius Lysias to his excellency the governor Felix, greetings.* 27This man, seized by the Jews and about to be murdered
by them, I rescued after intervening with my troops when I learned that he was a Roman citizen.g 28I wanted to learn the reason for their accusations against him so I brought him down to their Sanhedrin. 29I discovered that he was accused in matters of controversial questions of their law and not of any charge deserving death or imprisonment.h 30Since it was brought to my attention that there will be a plot against the man, I am sending him to you at once, and have also noti ed his accusers to state [their case] against him before you.”
31So the soldiers, according to their orders, took Paul and escorted him by night to Antipatris. 32The next day they returned to the compound, leaving the horsemen to complete the journey with him. 33When they arrived in Caesarea they delivered the letter to the governor and presented Paul to him. 34When he had read it and asked to what province he belonged, and learned that he was from Cilicia, 35he said, “I shall hear your case when your accusers arrive.” Then he ordered that he be held in custody in Herod’s praetorium.
The Resurrection, Issenheim altarpiece by Matthias Grünewald (1475/80-1528). The risen Christ is the focus of the good news that Paul preaches before the Jewish council. The Pharisees and Sadducees have different views about the Resurrection, and this pro o es a con ict between the two groups.
g. [23:27] 21:30–34; 22:27.
h. [23:29] 18:14–15; 25:18–19.
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* [23:23] By nine o’clock tonight: literally, “by the third hour of the night.” The night hours began at 6 p.m. Two hundred auxiliaries: the meaning of the Greek is not certain. It seems to refer to spearmen from the local police force and not from the cohort of soldiers, which would have numbered only 500–1000 men.
* [23:26–30] The letter emphasizes the fact that Paul is a Roman citizen and asserts the lack of evidence that he is guilty of a crime against the empire. The tone of the letter implies that the commander became initially involved in Paul’s case because of his Roman citizenship, but this is not an exact description of what really happened (see Acts 21:31–33; 22:25–29).
* [23:26] M. Antonius Felix was procurator of Judea from A.D. 52 to 60. His procuratorship was marked by cruelty toward and oppression of his Jewish subjects.