Acts 23:11

23:6-11 The Pharisees were correct in the faith of the Jewish church. The Sadducees were no friends to the Scripture or Divine revelation; they denied a future state; they had neither hope of eternal happiness, nor dread of eternal misery. When called in question for his being a Christian, Paul might truly say he was called in question for the hope of the resurrection of the dead. It was justifiable in him, by this profession of his opinion on that disputed point, to draw off the Pharisees from persecuting him, and to lead them to protect him from this unlawful violence. How easily can God defend his own cause! Though the Jews seemed to be perfectly agreed in their conspiracy against religion, yet they were influenced by very different motives. There is no true friendship among the wicked, and in a moment, and with the utmost ease, God can turn their union into open enmity. Divine consolations stood Paul in the most stead; the chief captain rescued him out of the hands of cruel men, but the event he could not tell. Whoever is against us, we need not fear, if the Lord stand by us. It is the will of Christ, that his servants who are faithful, should be always cheerful. He might think he should never see Rome; but God tells him, even in that he should be gratified, since he desired to go there only for the honour of Christ, and to do good.

The Lord stood by him; in a revelation appearing inwardly to his mind; which is the rather thought to have been so, because it is here said to have been in the night; but whether by vision or revelation, it is all one as to this purpose, and neither were unfrequent unto Paul, 2 Corinthians 12:1 . Be of good cheer: so true it is what our Saviour had promised and foretold, John 16:33 , In the world ye shall have tribulation, but in me ye shall have peace.

Acts 23:11 . Τῇ δὲ ἐπιούσῃ νυκτὶ , but on the following night ) When dangers have come to their height, then especially does the Lord disclose Himself with His consolation. The Divine promises were given, as to the people in the Old Testament, so to the saints individually, at that time especially when all things might seem to them desperate: comp. Acts 23:16 , ch. Acts 27:23 ; 2 Timothy 4:17 .— ὁ Κύριος ) the Lord , Jesus. What Paul in the spirit had proposed to himself, ch. Acts 19:21 , the Lord establishes (confirm), now when it was the mature (ripe) time. A third declaration is added by the angel of GOD: ch. Acts 27:23-24 . Accordingly from this chapter 23, the main subject of this book is the apostolical testimony accomplished by Paul at Rome: 2 Timothy 4:17 . But if the defenders of Peter’s supremacy had found either the whole or only the half of this ascribed to Peter, how they would urge it!— διεμαρτύρω , thou hast testified ) especially during the immediately preceding days.— Ἱερουσαλὴμ , Ῥώμην , in Jerusalem, at Rome ) The two metropolitan cities of the world.— δεῖ , thou must ) Danger in the eyes of God is a mere nothing. The very hindrances prove advantages.— καὶ , also ) To him who hath it shall be given.— εἰς Ῥώμην , at Rome ) The promise, reaching to a distance, embraced all the nearer and intermediate times.

Ac 23:11-35. In the Fortress Paul Is Cheered by a Night Vision—An Infamous Conspiracy to Assassinate Him Is Providentially Defeated, and He Is Despatched by Night with a Letter from the Commandant to Felix at Cæsarea, by Whom Arrangements Are Made for a Hearing of His Cause. 11. the night following—his heart perhaps sinking, in the solitude of his barrack ward, and thinking perhaps that all the predictions of danger at Jerusalem were now to be fulfilled in his death there. the Lord—that is, Jesus. stood by him … Be of good cheer, Paul; for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou … also at Rome—that is, "Thy work in Jerusalem is done, faithfully and well done; but thou art not to die here; thy purpose next to 'see Rome' (Ac 19:21) shall not be disappointed, and there also must thou bear witness of Me." As this vision was not unneeded now, so we shall find it cheering and upholding him throughout all that befell him up to his arrival there.

Verse 11. - The R.T. omits Paul , in the T.R. and A.V.; concerning for of , A.V.; at for in , A.V. The Lord stood by him . The jaded, harassed, and overwrought spirit needed some unusual support. The Lord whom Paul loved, and for whom he was suffering so much, knew it, and in his tender care for his servant stood by him and spake a word of gracious encouragement to him. Paul felt that he was not forgotten or forsaken. There was more work for him to do, in spite of all the hatred of his countrymen. The capital of heathendom must hear his testimony as well the metropolis of the circumcision. Acts 23:11

Acts 23:11-14 . Whether the appearance of Christ encouraging Paul to further stedfastness was a vision in a dream, or a vision in a waking state, perhaps in an ecstasy, cannot be determined (in opposition to Olshausen, who holds the latter as decided, see on Acts 16:9 ). εἰς Ἱερουσ . and εἰς Ῥώμ .] The preacher coming from without preaches into the city ; comp. Mark 14:9 . See on Mark 1:39 , also on Acts 9:28 , Acts 26:20 . Observe also, that Jerusalem and Rome are the capitals of the world , of the East and West. But a further advance, into Spain , were it otherwise demonstrable, would not be excluded by the intimation in this passage, since it fixes no terminus ad quem (in opposition to Otto, Pastoralbr . p. 171). Acts 23:12 . συστροφήν ] a combination ( Acts 19:40 ; 1Ma 14:44 ; Polyb. iv. 34. 6), afterwards still more precisely described by συνωμοσίαν , a conspiracy . That the conspirators were zealots and sicarii, perhaps instigated by Ananias himself (concerning whom, however, it is not demonstrable that he was himself a Sadducee), as Kuinoel thinks, is not to be maintained. Certainly those Asiatics in Acts 21:27 were concerned in it. οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι ] the Jews , as the opposition.

This general statement is afterwards more precisely limited, Acts 23:13 . ἀνεθεμ . ἑαυτούς ] they cursed themselves , pronounced on themselves (in the event of transgression) the הֶדֶם , the curse of divine wrath and divine rejection, declaring that they would neither eat nor drink ( γεύσασθαι , Acts 23:14 , expresses both) until, etc. See on similar self-imprecations (which, in the event of the matter being frustrated without the person’s own fault, could be removed by the Rabbins, Lightfoot in loc.), Selden, de Synedr. p. 108 f. ἔως ] with the subjunctive, because the matter is contemplated directly, and without ἄν ; Fritzsche, ad Matth. p. 499; Winer, p. 279 [E. T. 371]. Acts 23:14 . τοῖς ἀρχ . κ . τ . πρεσβ .] That they applied to the Sadducean Sanhedrists, is evident of itself from what goes before. ἀναθέμ . ἀναθεματίσ .] Winer, p. 434 [E. T. 584].

11–25 . Paul is cheered by a Vision. The Jews conspire to kill him 11 . And the night following ] The Apostle was now, though not rightly a prisoner, yet kept, that he might be out of harm’s way, under the charge of the Roman soldiers. The hearing of his case having been interrupted, another time was to be appointed when the examination should be completed. the Lord stood by him ] Appearing in a vision as before at Corinth, cp. Acts 18:9 . Be of good cheer ] The Apostle could hardly be otherwise than downcast with the events of the previous day. He had entered the Temple and undertaken the Nazarite vow with a view of conciliating the Jews and he had only been saved from being torn in pieces of them through the interference of the Roman commander. so must thou bear witness also at Rome ] He had already written to the Roman church of his “longing to see them,” and that “oftentimes he had purposed to come unto them ( Romans 1:11-13 ),” and St Luke ( Acts 19:21 ) records the intention in the history of St Paul’s stay at Ephesus. The way to compass such a visit had not yet been found, but now it is pointed out by the Lord Himself.

(11) Be of good cheer, Paul. —The day had been one of strange excitement, and most have roused many anxieties. Personal fear as to suffering or death he was, more than most men, free from; but was his work to be cut short? Was he to fall a victim to the malice of the Jews? Was the desire, which he had cherished for many years, to preach the gospel in the great capital of the empire ( Romans 1:13 ; Romans 15:23 ) to be frustrated? These questions pressed upon him in the wakeful night that followed the exhausting day; and, with a nature like St. Paul’s, such anxieties could not but find expression in his prayers. To those prayers the “vision and apocalypse of the Lord” of which we now read was manifestly the answer. To him, tossed on these waves and billows of the soul, as once before to the Twelve tossing on the troubled waters of the Sea of Galilee ( Matthew 14:27 ), there came the words, full of comfort and of hope, “Be of good cheer.” There might be delay and suffering, and a long trial of patience, but the end was certain; he was to reach the goal of Rome.

Acts CHRIST’S WITNESSESActs 23:11 . It had long been Paul’s ambition to ‘preach the Gospel to you that are at Rome also.’ His settled policy, as shown by this Book of the Acts, was to fly at the head, to attack the great centres of population. We trace him from Antioch to Philippi, Thessalonica, Athens, Corinth, Ephesus; and of course Rome was the goal, where a blow struck at the heart might reverberate through the empire. So he had planned for it, and prayed about it, and thought about it, and spoken about it. But his wish was accomplished, as our prayers and purposes so often are, in a manner very strange to him. A popular riot in Jerusalem, a half-friendly arrest by the contemptuous impartiality of a Roman officer, a final rejection by the Sanhedrim, a prison in Caesarea, an appeal to Caesar, a weary voyage, a shipwreck: this was the chain of circumstances which fulfilled his desire, and brought him to the imperial city. My text comes at the crisis of his fate. He has just been rejected by his people, and for the moment is in safety in the castle under the charge of the Roman garrison. One can fancy how, as he lay there in the barrack that night, he felt that he had come to a turning-point; and the thoughts were busy in his mind, ‘Is this for life or for death?