Paul Kretzmann Commentary - Acts 16:19 - 16:24

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Paul Kretzmann Commentary - Acts 16:19 - 16:24


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

Paul and Silas imprisoned:

v. 19. And when her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas, and drew them into the marketplace unto the rulers,

v. 20. and brought them to the magistrates, saying, These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city,

v. 21. and teach customs which are not lawful for us to receive, neither to observe, being Romans.

v. 22. And the multitude rose up together against them; and the magistrates rent off their clothes, and commanded to beat them.

v. 23. And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailer to keep them safely;

v. 24. who, having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks.

When the evil spirit went out of the slave-girl, the hope of gain of her masters also went out, as Luke notes, in a fine play upon the word. The income from this source was not only endangered, but was cut off entirely, a fact which touched them in their most sensitive spot. But when the owners of the girl realized this, they were filled with anger. Laying hold upon Paul and Silas, they half pulled and half dragged them to the market-place, to the forum, before the magistrates of the city. Here they became a little less turbulent in their behavior, leading their prisoners up to the praetors with some semblance of order and decency. The praetors were the chief authorities of the city, whose duty it was to try all cases of a political nature. The official title of the two men was duoviri, but they often styled themselves praetors. The charge of the masters of the slave was somewhat peculiar. They declared that Paul and Silas, Jews as they were, were not only creating a disturbance in the city, but were agitating the town by proclaiming such religious customs as would not be proper for them to accept and to exercise, since they were Romans. The complaint then was, in brief, that the apostles were upsetting the entire social and religious system of the city, a fact all the more to be condemned since the accused belonged to the despised Jews. The insinuation, which hinted at the introduction of prohibited religious customs of a particularly objectionable kind, as well as the fact that the men were Jews, was sufficient to rouse the multitude present in the forum, a mob which was easily incensed and swayed. Without so much as giving the prisoners an opportunity of defending themselves against the charges, the praetors led in the assault upon them by causing their clothes to be torn from their bodies and then commanding them to be beaten with rods, a grievous and degrading punishment. Only after many lashes had been laid upon Paul and Silas was the first fury satisfied. But then came the further indignity, according to which the praetors cast them into prison and gave the keeper of the jail the earnest charge to keep them safely with all diligence and rigor. This command the keeper interpreted in his own way, influenced possibly also by his own feeling in the matter, for he not only put them into the inner prison, with several walls between them and freedom and a minimum of light and air to cheer them, but he also secured their feet in the stocks, a wooden instrument of torture in which the feet were tightly clamped, holding them firmly in one position and thereby causing a good deal of pain. The clamping of the feet in the stocks interfered with the circulation and cramped the muscles, a torture which became more unendurable with every minute. Note: Every confessor of Christ and of the Gospel is liable to be treated in the same way, to become a partaker of the reproach of Christ. And those men especially that proclaim the way of salvation are considered disturbers of the peace and insurrectionists by the children of the world.