The Chief Captain having secured the Apostle, binding him by two chains, demanded

"who the man might be, and what he had done?" receiving however but a confused and

contradictory reply. Probably afraid that they were to be cheated of their prey, the mob

cried out "Away with him!" (Aire auton), using the identical words of the yelling crowds

who demanded the crucifixion of Christ, as recorded in Luke 23: 18.  The Chief

Captain had ordered Paul to be taken to the barracks, but the surging mob carried the

fettered apostle off his feet, and he was only saved from being torn limb from limb by the

presence of the soldiery. In the midst of all this tumult, one man remained calm--the

poor battered prisoner.

"May I speak a word to you?" said a voice speaking in Greek. Lysias had evidently

assumed that he had at last laid hands on the false Messiah already mentioned and who

had eluded pursuit since Passover, but he knew that this Egyptian impostor could not

speak Greek like that which he now heard. "I am a man which am a Jew of Tarsus, a city

in Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city, and I beseech thee, suffer me to speak unto the

people" (Acts 21: 39). The request was strange, and in all probability would have been

refused, had not some dignity and authority made themselves manifest beneath the

battered appearance of the prisoner. To gain attention and command respect the Apostle

had given at length the fact of his citizenship of Tarsus, adding, as further weight, the

comment as to the importance of the city. Moreover, the Romans, if brutal, were also

brave, and the fact that a prisoner, and a Jew, just snatched from a violent death, should

request leave to turn and face his persecutors would impress them in his favour.

Lysias apparently ordering one of Paul's hands to be unchained, the prisoner, standing

on the stairs, with arm uplifted, made signs that he wished to speak. His voice fell upon

their ears with quieting effect, for the "Hebrew tongue", in which Paul spoke (Te

Hebraidi dialekto) was the Syro-Chaldaic, the language of the native population of

Palestine. Had the Apostle spoken in Greek the majority would have misunderstood him,

but hearing what, to them, would be "the holy tongue", a stillness fell upon them all.

Here we must stay. The address which the Apostle gave, and its sequel, constitutes

the opening of the last great section of the Acts, which closes in Rome, with the

imprisoned Apostle "teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all

confidence, no man forbidding him". With this closing section of the Acts is bound up

that ministry with which, through electing grace, all our hopes are associated.