Acts 12:18

As soon as it was day

(Γενομενης ημερας). Genitive absolute, day having come.No small stir

(ταραχος ουκ ολιγος). Litotes (ουκ ολιγος), occurs eight times in the Acts as in Acts 15:2, and nowhere else in the N.T. Ταραχος (stir) is an old word from ταρασσω, to agitate. In the N.T only here and Acts 19:23. Probably all sixteen soldiers were agitated over this remarkable escape. They were responsible for the prisoner with their lives (cf. Acts 16:27; Acts 27:42). Furneaux suggests that Manaen, the king's foster-brother and a Christian (Acts 13:1), was the "angel" who rescued Peter from the prison. That is not the way that Peter looked at it.What was become of Peter

(τ αρα ο Πετρος εγενετο). An indirect question with the aorist indicative retained. Αρα adds a syllogism (therefore) to the problem as in Luke 1:66. The use of the neuter τ (as in Acts 13:25) is different from τις, though nominative like Πετρος, literally, "what then Peter had become," "what had happened to Peter" (in one idiom). See the same idiom in John 21:21 (ουτος δε τ).But this one what

(verb γενησετα not used).