Acts 23:12

The Jews now conspire against the Life of PaulThe Romans, alarmed for his Safety, send him strongly guarded to Cæsarea, the Headquarters of their Power in those Parts, 12-35.

Acts 23:12. And when it was day, certain of the Jews banded together, and bound themselves under a cone, saying that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul. ‘The contrast is great between the peaceful assurance thus secretly given to the faith of the apostle in his place of imprisonment and the active malignity of his enemies in the city' (Howson, St. Paul). The Jews here alluded to were doubtless composed of Paul's bitter foes from Asia then present in Jerusalem for the Pentecostal feast, together with his Sadducæan opponents. It is more than probable that a considerable number of these Jews belonged to that wild and fanatic association which played so prominent a part in the Holy Land in the last years of Jerusalem the Sicarii or assassins. These violent men bound themselves with a dreadful oath (kherem, חֵדֶם, ἀνάθεμα), that is, they invoked the curse of God upon themselves in the event of their violating their vow, binding themselves neither to eat nor drink until they had murdered Paul, the enemy of their race. In the case of such fearful vows, by no means uncommon in that wild time of disorder and hatred, the Talmud, however, provided a loophole of escape for those who so rashly took this burden on themselves; they furnished the means of releasing the man from the vow and the curse, if the carrying it out in its entirety became impossible: ‘He that hath vowed not to eat anything, woe to him if he eat, and woe to him if he eat not: if he eat, he sinneth against his vow; if he eat not, he sinneth against his life. What must one do in such a case? Let him approach the wise ones, and they will release him from his vow, as it is written, “ The tongue of the wise is health,” Proverbs 12:18 ' (from the Talmud, quoted by Lightfoot, Horae Heb. et Talm.). The above is a fair specimen of the casuistry of the Jewish doctors.