Acts 12:1

Acts 12:1. Herod's persecution of the Church. Peter's miraculous deliverance from prison

1. Now about that time The events here narrated must have shortly preceded Herod's death, and so the chronological note here given must refer to some date near a.d. 43.

Herod the king This was Herod Agrippa I. He was the son of Aristobulus and grandson of Herod the Great. See Dictionary of the Bible.

stretched forth his hands to vex( injure) certain of the church 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.