Acts 12:1

κατ' ἐκεῖνον δὲ τὸν καιρόν, now about that time. The events narrated in this chapter must have occurred very shortly before Herod’s death. The date will therefore be about A.D. 43.

Ἡρώδης ὁ βασιλεύς. This was Herod Agrippa I. He was the son of Aristobulus, and grandson of Herod the Great. See Table of the Herods in Archdeacon Farrar’s St Luke (Cambridge Gk. Test. for Schools), Introduction, p. li.

ἐπέβαλεν … τὰς χεῖρας κακῶσαι, stretched forth his hands to injure. Agrippa according to Josephus (XIX. 7. 3) was anxious to be esteemed a devout Jew: ‘He loved to live continually at Jerusalem, and was exactly careful in the observance of the laws of his country. He therefore kept himself entirely pure, nor did any day pass over his head without its appointed sacrifice.’ Such a man might easily be roused, by the Jews whom he was so anxious to please, to the perpetration of cruelties upon the Christians.

On the seizure of St James, Chrysostom says, Τοῦτό ἐστιν ὃ ἔλεγεν ὁ Χριστός. τὸ μὲν ποτήριον ὃ μέλλω πίνειν πίεσθε, καὶ τὸ βάπτισμα ὃ ἐγὼ βαπτίζομαι βαπτισθήσεσθε.