Acts 23:12–35 (ESV)✞: A Plot to Kill Paul, Paul Sent to Felix the Governor
Passage
At this point in Acts Paul is in jail – not because he’s committed any crimes, but because the Jewish religious leaders keep trying to kill him (or stir up mobs to kill him), and the Roman authorities are simply trying to keep him alive until they can figure out what’s going on.
However, even jail might not be enough to keep Paul safe:
12 When it was day, the Jews made a plot and bound themselves by an oath neither to eat nor drink till they had killed Paul. 13 There were more than forty who made this conspiracy. 14 They went to the chief priests and elders and said, “We have strictly bound ourselves by an oath to taste no food till we have killed Paul. 15 Now therefore you, along with the council, give notice to the tribune to bring him down to you, as though you were going to determine his case more exactly. And we are ready to kill him before he comes near.”
Paul’s nephew hears about the plot, however, so he goes to the jail to tell Paul, who sends the young man to tell the tribune. The tribune asks the young man to keep it secret that he’s been informed; I assume so that he can safely spirit Paul away while the conspirators aren’t watching, which is exactly what he does.
First he prepares a letter for Felix, the governor, who’s in Caesarea, saying:
26 “Claudius Lysias, to his Excellency the governor Felix, greetings. 27 This man was seized by the Jews and was about to be killed by them when I came upon them with the soldiers and rescued him, having learned that he was a Roman citizen. 28 And desiring to know the charge for which they were accusing him, I brought him down to their council. 29 I found that he was being accused about questions of their law, but charged with nothing deserving death or imprisonment. 30 And when it was disclosed to me that there would be a plot against the man, I sent him to you at once, ordering his accusers also to state before you what they have against him.”
He then sends two hundred soldiers, seventy horsemen, and two hundred spearmen to escort Paul. All 470 men accompany Paul to a place called Antipatris, after which only the horsemen continue on with him the rest of the way to Caesarea. I assume this is because the danger to Paul is greatly lessened once some distance has been put between him and the conspirators; by the time they realize Paul has been whisked away, they’ll have a long journey ahead of them to catch up with him.
Once he arrives, Felix puts Paul under guard until his accusers can arrive.
Thoughts
My first thought at the end of this passage is sarcastic: “I guess the conspirators died of hunger!” I’m not the first person to have had that thought, however, since the ESV Study Bible makes a very similar jest – except that they one-up me by following it with actual information:
Acts 23:21 Since the plot was thwarted, one wonders if the conspirators died of hunger and thirst! Probably not: by rabbinic law, in the event a vow became impossible to fulfill, those under it were released from its terms (see Mishnah, Nedarim 3.3).
ESV Study Bible
So this is yet another example of God telling me I should be less sarcastic1.
Since I’m dipping into my favourite Study Bible, I should point out another interesting fact they raise:
Acts 23:23–24 The entire Roman force in Jerusalem consisted of a single cohort of up to 1,000 soldiers. The importance that Lysias attached to his prisoner is evidenced by his sending approximately half the force to protect him.
ESV Study Bible
These are interesting facts but I should really be thinking about spiritual implications of this passage, though I’m kind of coming up short. The result of all of these machinations is that Paul is on his way to Felix the governor, and after that he’ll be going to Rome to stand “trial” before the Roman emperor. (I put “trial” in quotes because he’s not actually charged with anything at this point, and I’m not sure if he will be by the time he goes to Rome – we’ll see when we get there.)
I suppose the fact that this is leading to Paul going to Rome is sort of a spiritual implication: God is in control of these events, and is using them to put Paul before the emperor. That being said, I don’t know the historical implications of Paul standing before Caesar; I’m sure it led to something, but I don’t know what. My limited knowledge of history tells me that Christians in the Roman Empire are still in for a few hundred years of persecution before the Empire turns formally Christian.
Footnotes
- To be fair [to myself], sometimes I’m not actually sarcastic, just ironic. Or sardonic (which I might classify as a kind of sarcasm). ↩
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