Acts 16:35

ἀπέσ. οἱ στρατηγοὶ : we are not told the reason of this sudden change in the action of the prætors, and no doubt the omission may fairly account for the reading in, see critical notes. At the same time it is quite characteristic of St. Luke to give the plain facts without entering upon explanations. Meyer thinks that they were influenced by the earthquake, while Wendt rather inclines to the view that they were incited to this action, so inconsistent with their former conduct, by fresh intelligence as to their own hasty treatment of the missionaries; Ramsay combines both views, and see also St. Paul, p. 224, on the contrast brought out by St. Luke, and also on the Bezan text; see to the same effect Zöckler, in loco. Blass accounts for the change of front on the part of the prætors by supposing that they saw in the earthquake a sign that they had insulted a foreign deity, and that they had therefore better dismiss his servants at once, lest further mischief should result. τοὺς ῥαβ.: “the lictors” R.V. margin, apparently as the duoviri aped the prætors, so the lictors carried the fasces and not the baculi, cf. Cicero, De Leg. Agr., ii., 34; Farrar, St. Paul, i., 493; Grimm-Thayer, sub v., and references in Wetstein: διὰ τί λικτώρεις τοὺς ῥαβδούχους ὀνομάζουσι; Plut., Quæst. Rom. 67.