Acts 12:17

the Lord had brought him out of the prison Which had been his exclamation when he came to himself, "The Lord hath sent his angel."

Go shew There is only one verb in the Greek, which signifies "to bear word." This the A.V. has attempted to render fully by the two verbs.

unto James This is no doubt the James who is afterwards (Acts 15:13) described as presiding over the council at Jerusalem concerning circumcision, and giving his sentence on that question. Thus he seems to have been at the head of the Church at Jerusalem, and to him it was natural for Peter to send the first news of his deliverance.

This James must have been either the son of Alphæus or the James who is one of the Lord's brethren, but it is not easy to decide whether the persons called by these names were one and the same. It seems however safest not to identify the Apostle, James the son of Alphæus, with the Lord's brother, for these brethren of Jesus did not believe in Him till a very late period of His ministerial life, long after the twelve were chosen. But the James in our narrative is probably the Lord's brother, because St Paul gives to the James who was one of the pillars of the Church at Jerusalem (Galatians 2:9) when St Paul visited that city, the express title of "the Lord's brother" (Galatians 1:19). This James, bishop of Jerusalem, was, as we learn from a tradition preserved by Eusebius (H. E. ii. 23), cast down from the pinnacle of the Temple, whither the Jews had brought him, in the expectation that he would disown Christ. When, on the contrary, he still held to his belief, he was thrown down, and not being killed by the fall, was slain by a blow from the club of a fuller.

and to the brethren Though it was in the middle of the night when his deliverance took place, Peter sends to the various centres where, as in the house of Mary, prayer was also being offered to God for his deliverance.

went into another place The peril of death was so imminent, if he had been seized, that he takes refuge by hiding where he cannot be found. The times are altered since the day when after his former deliverance he could dare to go and speak in the day-dawn to the people in the Temple. Then the populace were a protection to the Church, and saved them from violence of the authorities, now the Jewish people are in expectation of a second execution.