Acts 23:27

Acts 23:27. Then came I with an army, and rescued him, having understood that he was a Roman. This is distinctly a false statement of the facts as they stood. The commander in Antonia wished his superior, Felix, to think that he had interfered on the prisoner's behalf because he found Paul was a Roman citizen; but, in truth, he did not interpose until after Paul had been chained up to be scourged by his own orders. A desire to exhibit his zeal in the public service induced him to write this distorted view of the facts as they occurred. He evidently wished to throw a veil over the grave fault he had committed in ordering a Roman citizen to be scourged. Meyer well calls attention here to the evidence for the genuineness of the letter afforded by this comparatively trivial circumstance. The English Version, ‘having come with an army, ‘is not happy; it is better rendered ‘with my soldiery,' or ‘with the guard.'