Acts 12

Herod failed not daily to worship God, while he committed one murder after another to gratify the Jews.—2. “It is hard to kick against the pricks,” or to fight against the Almighty. Herod had seized Peter, and held him now in prison, under guard of sixteen soldiers, who were to relieve each other in parties of four each, to watch him night and day, and he was kept in perfect safety till the very men before his intended execution. But a machinery was now at work of which Herod had no conception. While soldiers watched him night and day, so did angels; and the whole church of God at Jerusalem were engaged in prayer, “without ceasing,” on his behalf. This was not necessary for his deliverance, for the eye of God was on him; but the occasion called forth all the pious affections of the brethren, and all the holy energy of prayer.

We hear nothing of Peter’s prayers, but he was a prisoner in Christ’s cause, and had doubtless committed himself into his hands and gone to sleep. Though he had before been rescued by an angel, it does not appear that he expected the visit of another heavenly messenger, or he would have kept awake for him. Peter was secure, however, as human power could make him, bound with chains, and sleeping between two soldiers. But the moment of deliverance is now come. “Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity.” A heavenly radiance, in the dead of night, penetrates those walls which, perhaps, the sunbeams ne’er never entered. An angel enters and smites Peter to awake him, while probably the same stroke smote the guards, both within and without, with slumbers irresistible.

Peter rises in surprise; his chains drop from him like burnt flax; locks and bolts give way instantly to the angelic touch; and even the massy iron gate leading outward into the street “opens of its own accord.” The angel conveyed him so far as he was commissioned, and then vanished. Hitherto Peter thought it was all a dream; but, finding himself at liberty, he repaired instantly to the house of John, surnamed Mark, where he knew the brethren were accustomed to assemble for devotion. Here he knocked, and the maid Rhoda, who kept the gate, came to listen and inquire who was there. She knew Peter’s voice in a moment, and, frantic with joy, ran in to announce it. At first they thought the woman mad, and, when she still persisted in her story, they concluded it must be his angel, or perhaps his ghost.

At length they opened the door and saw him, when they were no less astonished than the girl; but he, beckoning to them to be quiet, entered, and related all the circumstances. No alarm of his escape was, it seems, excited till the morning, probably at the time of relieving guard: then, not the prison only, but the palace was in alarm. Herod, being able to obtain no information from the keepers or the guard, commanded them to be put to death, and thus revenged himself for the escape of Peter. But we shall see, in our next section, that vengeance followed Herod. Ver. 20—25. The impiety and awful death of Herod.—The last clause of the preceding verse informs us, that after the mortification (as it doubtless was) of Peter’s deliverance from his hands, just at the time when he was about to make a public sacrifice of him for the gratification of the Jews, “Herod went down from Judea to Cesarea, and there abode.”

On some occasion, not worthy of our inquiry, he found himself much offended with the inhabitants of Tyre and Sidon, who, residing upon the coast, depended on Judea for a supply of corn and other provisions: without, therefore, contending for the justice of their cause, they thought it the wisest way to employ the king’s chamberlain to speak on their behalf; beside which they sent ambassadors to procure reconciliation, to which Herod, whose interest it perhaps equally was, seems to have made no objection. Herod at this time celebrating by command a festival in honour of the emperor, the above persons were invited to attend, while the great and the gay were collected together from all parts of the country.

On the second day of the shows, (says Josephus,) “Herod came into the theatre early in the morning, dressed in a robe of silver, of most curious workmanship. The rays of the rising sun, reflected from so splendid a garb, gave him a majestic and awful appearance. In a short time they began in several parts of the theatre flattering acclamations, which proved pernicious to him. They called him a god, and entreated him to be propitious to them, saying, Hitherto we have respected you as a man, but now we acknowledge you to be more than mortal. The king neither reproved these persons, nor rejected the impious flattery….. Eauiie-

Notes on the verses

Chap. XII. Ver. 1—19. Herod’s cruelty—Peter’s miraculous deliverance.—Of all the royal names recorded in sacred history, those of the believing Gentiles is described; they were about to constitute one church with the believing Jews, and be made partakers of the heavenly inheritance.]— Ver. 17. What was I, that I could withstand God?—“O that the sin of withstanding God [by laying down rules of Christian communion, which exclude us ag om He has admitted] may not be laid to the charge of those who [act] with a good intention, but in an over fondness for their own forms.”’— Ver. 18. Held their peace.—Doddridge, “acquiesced.” Ver. 19. Antioch.—This was the capital of bats and the third city in the Roman empire; Rome and Alexandria only ranking before it.—Doddridge.

Ver. 20. To the Grecians—or Hellenists; that is, Jews who used the Greek language. See note on (Acts 6:1). But the Alexandrian MS., which is favoured by the Syriac and other ancient versions, and some Christian Fathers, reads, ‘the Grecks;" plainly meaning Gentile Greeks, which Doddridge, Lardner, and Griesbach decidedly prefer; Campbell, Scott, and Boothroyd, however, defend the common version. Ver. 25. Tarsus.—The metropolis of Cilicia, situated on the banks of the river Cydnus, which flowed through it, and divided it into two parts. Ver. 26. With the church.—“In the church.” So Hammond, Doddridge, &c.; meaning, perhaps, the house in which they used to assemble; but Townsend objects to this on the ground of their being probably too numerous: by the church, then, we may understand, the body of the faithful in that city.

——The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.—Doddridge thinks the original implies that they were so named by divine appointment, but an angel delivereth upon the prayers of the church. 2D in is pride wl teh Ree bh; i a or, began. ‘prayer was made without ceasing of the b Mat.4.21. church unto God for him. stant an e keepers before the door ke 8 And the angel said unto him, Gird thyself, tory, those of Pharaoh and of Herod rank the highest for cruelty and impiety. Herod the Great murdered a number of infants, in hope of destroying the infant Jesus, ((Matthew 2:16);) to say nothing of his cruelty to his own children, which led Augustus to say, it were better to have been his hog than his son.

Herod Antipas, his son, sacrificed the holy prophet, John the Baptist, in order to gratify an adulteress, with whom he lived in incest. The Herod here introduced to our notice was Herod Agrippa, grandson of the former, whom he much resembled, both in his character and end. St. Luke calls him “Herod the king.” At first he was simply a tetrarch, with a royal title; but his dominions were increased, till they became equal in extent to those of his grandfather, and his power no less absolute and tyrannical. Josephus speaks of his great kindness to the Jews his countrymen, which induced him to live much at Jerusalem, where he “observed the Jewish institutions, practised the purity they require, and did not let a day pass without worshipping God according to the law.”

Yet notwithstanding all this religion, he killed James, the brother of John; and “because it pleased the Jews,” he imprisoned Peter also, meaning to bring him out to public execution at the close of Easter, or, more properly, the Passover. Here we stop to make two observations: 1. That the strictest forms of outward religion may be observed, while the Parkhurst denies the word any such meaning; and it seems, much more probable that they received the name of Christians, as they had done those of Nazarenes and Galileans, from the populace. So in modern times the names of Lutherans, Calvinists, were not assumed, but given. - Ver. 28. Great dearth.—{This was probably the famine which took place in the fourth year of Claudius, which continued for several years, and in which, says Josephus, “many died for want of food.”

]|}—Bagster.— All the world.— So the Greek word confessedly signifies; but the best interpreters are compelled with Lardner and Doddridge, to restrict it to Judea; and the former, for authority, quotes the LXX. on (Joshua 2:3); (Isaiah 13:5); and (Luke 4:25); xxi. 26. —In the days of Claudius Cesar.—| Claudius Cesar succeeded C. Caligula, A. D. 41; and after a reign of upwards of 13 years, he was poisoned by his wife Agrippina, and succeeded by Nero.]}—Bagster. Chap. XII. Ver. 1. Herod stretched forth his hands.—Doddridge, “laid hands on some of the church to afflict them.” Ver. 2. With the sword—i. e. by beheading him. Ver. 4. Four quaternions—i. e. four parties, of four soldiers each.—A/ter Easter.—Doddridge, “The Passover.”

(Gr. Pascha.) Ver. 5. Without ceasing.—Doddridge, “Earnest and continual prayer was made,” &c. This may be illustrated by an allusion to Moses, whose hands being stretched out in prayer for Israel, were held up by Aaron and Hur. (Exodus 17:11-12). Ver. 6. Bound with two chains.—One hand being chained to the soldier on his right hand, the other to another on his left. Ver. 7. His chains.—{The two chains with which his hands were fastened to those of the two soldiers between whom he slept. This, it appears, was the Roman method of securing a prisoner; and seems to be that which is intimated in verse 6.)—Bagster. Ver. 9. Wist not—(That is, he knew not; wist being the preterite tense of the obsolete verb to wis, from the Saxon wissan, in German wissen, and Dutch wysen, to think, imagine, know.)—Bagster.

Ver. 11. Peter was come.—He was in an ecstasy: and it was only when the angel left him, that he was fully convinced that all was real.—Bagster. Ver 12. When he had considered.—Doddridge, rather, when he recollected himself. Ver. 13. Peter knocked at the door.—(The door was probably shut for fear of the Jews; and, as most of the houses in the East have an area before the door, it might have been this outer gate at which Peter stood knocking.)—B. Ver. 15. It is his angel.—(They spoke according to the notion, whether true or false, which has generally prevailed, that when a person is near death, or was actually expired, a spirit or angel, in his exact form, and speaking with his voice sometimes appears to his friends.)—Bagster. Ver. 17. Unto James.—Not James the kinsman of John, for he was beheaded; but James the less, (as he is called,) author of the general Epistle, said, ca. another place.—Probably to secrete himself more effectually—which Ver. 19. Put to death.—Doddridge, “Led away to execution.” So Ham- Ver. 20. Was highly displeased.—Doddridge, “Was highly incensed” on account of some supposed affront. Ver. 21. And upon a set day.—Josephus says, that this was upon a day in which games were exhibited in honour of Claudius; and that, as Herod did not rebuke this impious flattery, he was seized with a severe pain in his bowels, which terminated his existence in five days.—Bagster. Z Pde: = The people gave a shout.—Hammond, “shouted, The voice of God, C.

Ver. 23. The angel of the Lord.—Instead of this angel, Josephus tells us of an owl. He states that, “presently after he had received the flattery of the multitude, looking up, he saw an owl, sitting on a certain rope over his