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B 22:22,23. Effect when they heard `Gentiles'. Lifted up voices.
The parallelisms and contrasts of the speech are evident. The silence that was secured by Paul's use of the
Hebrew language is in direct contrast with the uproar that followed the pronouncement of the hated word `Gentile'.
The double reference to Paul's early zeal and persecuting spirit is of importance in his endeavour to prove that he
had not easily departed from the religion of his fathers, while the central position of the two visions, with their
emphasis upon `Witness' and `Testimony', reveal the nature of Israel's blindness, and the nature of the apostle's
early ministry.
Like the Twelve, Paul was a witness of what he had `seen and heard'. He was about to make known that he was
also set apart as a witness of something more (Acts 26:16), but this we will consider in its own place.
`Far hence unto the Gentiles' (Acts 22:21) is the first occurrence of ethnos in this section, and in the statement
that `the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles' (Acts 28:28) occurs the last reference of ethnos in the Acts.
Paul is still, in Acts 22, in Jerusalem, but already, in spirit, he sees the fulfilment of the Temple vision in Rome.
Paul's defence before the Council (Acts 23:1-35)
The apostle's testimony from the castle stairs ended in tumult. At the hated word `Gentiles', `They ... lifted up
their voices, and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth: for it is not fit that he should live' (Acts 22:22, cf.
21:36). This same word aire (`away') had been uttered once before by the mob when they clamoured for another
Prisoner - the Lord Himself (Luke 23:18; John 19:15). The apostle is here following closely in the footsteps of his
Master.
Paul's speech having been made in Hebrew, the chief captain is at a loss to know the meaning of this fresh
outbreak, and so we read: `The chief captain commanded him to be brought into the castle, and bade that he should
be examined by scourging; that he might know wherefore they cried so against him' (Acts 22:24). The apostle had
already been submitted on previous occasions to the cruel and degrading punishment of being beaten with Roman
rods, and of being scourged in Jewish synagogues: `Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice
was I beaten with rods', (2 Cor. 11:24,25). And now it seemed that he would have to endure the horrible flagellum,
or `whip', a form of torture which in Roman hands sometimes ended fatally.
In Acts 22:25 we read: `And while they were binding him down with the thongs' (Alford). Some expositors,
including Conybeare and Howson, and Lewin, consider that the `thongs' refer to the `lash' of the whip, but others,
among them Alford, Wordsworth and Farrar, interpret the word in the sense of `something that binds'. The word
himas occurs elsewhere in Mark 1:7, Luke 3:16 and John 1:27, where it refers to the `latchet' of a shoe. The prefix
pro in the verb proteino `to bind', refers to `the position of the prisoner, which was bent forward and tied with a sort
of gear made of leather to an inclined post' (Alford).
Three times already Paul, a Roman citizen, had suffered the illegality of being beaten, without revealing his
station and claiming exemption. True martyrdom, however, is never separated in Scripture from the thought of
`witness'. The same Greek word matur is translated both `martyr' and `witness', as for example:
`Thou shalt be His witness' Acts 22:15).
`The blood of Thy martyr' (Acts 22:20).
`The faithful witness' (Rev. 1:5).
`My faithful martyr' (Rev. 2:13).
Suffering apart from service, suffering endured for its own sake, and without an object in view, is not martyrdom
in the Scriptural sense. While the apostle felt that there was still hope for Israel, he endured in silence, but he had
now entered the closing phase of his ministry, and Israel's days were numbered. To suffer the ignominy of
examination by torture would now serve no useful end. It would benefit no one, and it would not uphold any vital
truth. In the circumstances, it would have been a piece of unreasonable stoicism, and Paul therefore says to the
centurion that stood by: `Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned?' (Acts 22:25).