Acts 23

9 Paul had told the Sanhedrin that the risen Christ had spoken with him. The Pharisees of the Sanhedrin saw nothing wrong with that. They assumed Paul meant that an angel or a spirit had spoken with him; and since they themselves believed in angels and spirits (verse 8), they saw nothing unusual about Paul’s statement.

10 The commander had hoped to find out from the Sanhedrin what crime Paul had committed, but he wasn’t successful. In the end he found out nothing!

11 At certain times during Paul’s life, Christ spoke to him in visions in order to encourage and instruct him (Acts 18:9; 22:17). Now again Jesus said to Paul in a vision: “Take courage! I have decided to send you to Rome.”

Paul remained a prisoner in Israel for two more years after that, but he never worried or feared for his life. He knew that at the right time he would be going to Rome.

12-15 It was common among the Jews to take an oath not to eat or drink until a certain task had been accomplished. According to Jewish custom, if the task proved impossible to carry out, the vow could be canceled.

Accordingly, about forty Jews joined together and vowed not to eat or drink until they had killed Paul. They told the chief priests and elders about their evil plot and requested their help in carrying it out. It seems that these Jewish leaders agreed to the plot; nothing is written that suggests they opposed it.

16-22 Except for this passage, nothing else is written about Paul’s sister and her son. It is not said how this young man found out about the plot.

When the commander heard of the plot, he no longer dared to keep Paul under his authority. If Paul, a Roman citizen, should be killed, the commander would be blamed for failing to protect him.

23-24 The commander decided to send Paul immediately to the Roman governor Felix under cover of night. He ordered 470 soldiers to accompany Paul, so that no one would be able to kill him on the way. The commander was taking no chances!

25-30 The commander, whose name was Claudius Lysias, wrote a letter to Governor Felix describing the facts about Paul. But on one point he did not write the truth. He wrote: I came with my troops and rescued [Paul], for I had learned that he is a Roman citizen (verse 27). This was not entirely true. The commander learned that Paul was a Roman citizen only after he had ordered him to be stretched out for flogging (Acts 22:24-25). The commander didn’t write anything about that!

31-32 Antipatris was a town about thirty-five miles from Jerusalem. They traveled the entire distance in that one night. The foot soldiers surely walked quickly! By morning Paul was no longer in any danger from the Jews in Jerusalem, so only the seventy horsemen escorted Paul the remaining thirty miles to Caesarea, where the Roman governor lived.

33-35 Governor Felix, after reading the commander’s letter, decided not to do anything about Paul until his accusers had come down from Jerusalem to make their charges against him in person. At that time he would hear Paul’s case. Meanwhile, he ordered that Paul be kept securely in a palace which King Herod had originally built for himself (Acts 12:1,19).