Acts 16:27

ἔξυπνος : only here in N.T., once in LXX, Esther 3:3; Esther 3:3, of Darius waking from sleep. μάχαιραν : article omitted in T.R., see critical note. Weiss thinks that the omission occurs since in Acts 12:2, and five times in Luke, no article is found with μάχαιρα. τὴν = his sword, cf. Mark 14:47. ἤμελλεν, cf. Acts 3:3; Acts 5:35; Acts 12:6, etc., characteristic Lucan word, see Friedrich, p. 12. The act was quite natural, the act of a man who had lost in his terror his self-control (Weiss). ἑαυτὸν ἀναιρεῖν : to avoid the disgraceful fate which would be allotted to him by Roman law, according to which the jailor was subjected to the same death as the escaped prisoners would have suffered (Wetstein, in loco), cf. Acts 12:19; Acts 27:42. νομίζων, see on Acts 7:25. It seems hypercritical to ask, How could Paul have seen that the jailor was about to kill himself? That there must have been some kind of light in the outer prison is evident, otherwise the jailor could not have even seen that the doors were open, nor is there any difficulty in supposing that Paul out of the darkness of the inner prison would see through the opened doors any one in the outer doorway, whilst to the jailor the inner prison would be lost in darkness. Moreover, as Blass notes, Paul may have heard from the jailor's utterances what he meant to do: “neque enim tacuisse putandus est” (see also Ramsay, Felten, Hackett, Lumby, in loco).