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31. ζητούντων τε αὐτὸν ἀποκτεῖναι, and as they were seeking to kill him.
For the omission of the pronoun, which is not rare with the genitive absolute of the third person, see on Act 21:10 above and cf. 1Ch 17:24, μεγαλυνθήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου ἕως αἰῶνος λεγόντων Κύριε, κύριε παντοκράτωρ.
For ζητεῖν in the sense of ‘wishing’ as here cf. Exo 4:24, συνήντησεν αὐτῷ ἄγγελος κυρίου, καὶ ἐζήτει αὐτὸν ἀποκτεῖναι. The desire of the mob was clearly, now that they had the Apostle in their power, to beat him to death in the crowd, and thus avoid a charge of murder against any individual.
ἀνέβη φάσις τῷ χιλιάρχῳ τῆς σπείρης, tidings came up to the chief captain of the band. The chief military officer of the Romans in Jerusalem was stationed in the tower of Antonia, which was situate on the N.W. of the Temple on the hill Acra. This tower had been built by Herod, and was so close to the scene of the tumult that news would be brought at once. The military officer (probably a tribune) is called χιλίαρχος, that is, officer over a thousand men. On the word σπεῖρα for a Roman cohort, or troop of soldiers, cf. Act 10:1. The verb ἀνέβη ‘came up to’ shews that the writer was familiar with the locality and had the whole scene in his mind. On the Tower of Antonia, see Josephus, Vita, 5.
φάσις is used in classical Greek for a formal accusation laid before a law court. It is only found once in the LXX. where φάσις θεοῦ is the order from God given for the punishment of an offender, Susanna 55. The name of the χιλίαρχος is from the further history (Act 23:26) found to have been Claudius Lysias, but nothing is known of him beyond what we read in the Acts.
συγχύννεται, was in confusion. Cf. the σύγχυσις at Ephesus, Act 19:29. At the time of the feast religious party feeling was sure to run very high, and the multitudes of strangers visiting the city would think to shew their zeal for the Temple and the Law by their eagerness to avenge any supposed profanation.