Acts 23:23

Acts 23:23. And he called unto him two centurions, saying, Make ready two hundred soldiers to go to Cæsarea, and horsemen threescore and ten, and spearmen two hundred, at the third hour of the night. Four hundred and seventy soldiers seems to have been a large force to have guarded a single prisoner from the murderous design of forty Sicarii, but the disturbed uneasy state of the entire country must be borne in mind, and the Roman commander in Antonia was perplexed and alarmed about the whole matter. He suspected there was more in the charge against Paul than met the eye, and was anxious to deliver the accused safe into the hands of the superior authority at Cæsarea. The fact, too, of the Roman citizenship of the prisoner, whose death was evidently earnestly desired by the Jewish Sanhedrim, made him more cautious. This large and powerful escort was to set out in all secrecy, when it was dark, at the third hour of the night, that is, nine o'clock in the evening, as Claudius Lysias desired, if possible, to avoid any collision with the zealots and their supporters in the supreme council. There is some doubt as to the meaning of the Greek word translated ‘spearmen' δεξιολα ́ βους), rendered in the Vulgate lancearios, as the term is never found in any Greek writings before the time of Constantine Porphyro-genitus, who makes use of it hundreds of years later to describe some light-armed troops. Some commentators, arguing from the meaning of the words with which the term is compounded, have supposed that they were a body-guard who protected the right side of the commanding officer, others that they were military lictors. Ewald suggests they were Arabian auxiliaries attached to the Roman forces in Judæa, Arabia being famous for its slingers. On the whole, our English translation ‘spearmen,' which reproduces the Vulgate lancearii, is likely to be correct.