Acts 12


Acts 12 is the twelfth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It records the death of the first apostle, James, son of Zebedee, followed by the miraculous escape of Peter from prison, the death of Herod Agrippa I, and the early ministry of Barnabas and Paul of Tarsus. The book containing this chapter is anonymous, but early Christian tradition uniformly affirmed that Luke composed this book as well as the Gospel of Luke.

Text

The original text was written in Koine Greek. This chapter is divided into 25 verses.

Textual witnesses

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter are:
This chapter mentions the following places:
Sometime after the events in the previous chapter, the apostles in Jerusalem are harassed by a new persecution by a "Herod", not Herod Antipas, who was involved in the trial of Jesus but Agrippa I, a grandson of Herod the Great, resulting in the killing of James the son of Zebedee and the imprisonment of Simon Peter.

Verse 1

Heinrich Meyer suggests that these events took place in 44 AD, the year of the death of Herod Agrippa, at the same time as the prophets from Jerusalem travelled to Antioch and returned with aid for the Judean church. J. R. Lumby, in the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges suggests "some time near 43 AD", and the Jerusalem Bible assigns them to "between 41 and 44". John Stott holds that Luke was "deliberately vague" in regard to timing.

Verses 2-3

Josephus states that Herod Antipas had been "more friendly to the Greeks than to the Jews", but Herod Agrippa sought the approval of the Jews and, in this respect, was "not at all like" his predecessor. James was probably beheaded.

Peter freed from prison (verses 6–11)

This part of the chapter tells that after Peter was put into prison by King Herod, on the night before his trial an angel appeared to him, and told him to leave. Peter's chains fell off, and he followed the angel out of prison, thinking it was a vision. The prison doors opened of their own accord, and the angel led Peter into the city.

Verse 7

This verse is referred to in Charles Wesley's hymn And Can It Be.

Peter's reception by the church (verses 12–17)

Peter's reception by the church in this account has an element of humor that far from expecting their prayers to be answered, the believers are completely taken aback when Peter knocks at the door that the maid Rhoda runs back to the house instead of quickly open the door, so despite his supernatural escape, when prison doors was opened up for him, the house doors 'remain obstinately closed' for Peter.

Verse 12

  • "Thinking about that": is translated from Greek συνιδών, , "having considered ", "after had perceived " or "after had weighed ".

    Verse 17

  • "Motioning... with his hand" : translates the Greek phrase Κατασείειν τῇ χειρί, , "to make a shaking motion with the hand", to indicate 'a wish to bring forward something', seeking 'the silence and attention of those present'.

    Herod's reaction (verses 18–19)

The account's focus returns briefly back to the prison, where Herod, "depicted as a typical persecuting tyrant", vents his frustration on the guards. In verse 19 he orders them to be "led away", by implication to their deaths. There is an irony in the situation, in that "neither the soldiers nor Herod share the readers' privileged knowledge of Peter's secret" and whereabouts. Through no fault of their own they earn the punishment intended for their escaped prisoners.

Death of Herod

Herod's sensational death was well documented in Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews, and while it is independent from Luke's account, both report him "dying a horrible death as a punishment for being acclaimed as divine".

Verse 20

Luke provides a political setting for his account of Herod's death, which, though not present in Josephus' account, is "not implausible". Meyer notes that θυμομαχῶν can denote either warfare or some other kind of enmity. He suggests that "an actual war" between Herod and the Roman confederate cities of Tyre and Sidon was "very improbable", reading their desire for peace as a desire for "the preservation of the peace".

Verse 23

  • "Him" and "he" refer to Herod Agrippa I
  • "Died" or "breathed his last".

    Summary and transition (verses 24–25)

This part contrasts the death of the persecutor with the successful growth of God's word with the expansion of the church by God's power. Verse 25 provides a narrative link of the completed relief mission by the major characters from this point on as they return to Antioch.

Verse 25

  • "From Jerusalem": some manuscripts read 'to' Jerusalem, linking it with 'mission' rather than with 'returned', thus rendering this 'returned having completed their service to Jerusalem'.