Acts 23:3

Acts 23:3. Then said Paul unto him, God shall smite thee, thou whited wall. These strange words, spoken no doubt in hot anger and excitement by the indignant prisoner, must of course be understood not as an imprecation, but as a prophetic denunciation of a future doom. The prophecy was fulfilled to the letter, for in the early days of the Jewish war, we learn from Josephus, that in consequence of a sedition raised by his own son Eleazar, the Sicarii, led by Menahem, the son of Judas of Galilee, entered Jerusalem, and after committing many evil excesses, burned the palace of this Ananias, and having dragged him and his brother Hezekiah from their place of concealment, murdered them both (Bell. Judges 2:17; Judges 2:9). The expression ‘whited wall,' or hypocrite, was used with a slight variation by the Lord to the Pharisees and scribes (Matthew 23:27; Luke 11:44). The simile, after this use by their Master, had most likely become proverbial among the Christians of the first days, and was singularly applicable in the case of this violent and haughty priest, who no doubt presented externally, as he sat on his throne of honour in the Sanhedrim, with his grey hair and white priestly garments, girt with the insignia of his lofty office, a venerable and imposing appearance; but internally, his heart was full of rage and of deadly hatred, of injustice and tyranny. The Jews, as a rule, painted their sepulchres conspicuously white, that they might not defile themselves by unexpectedly coming in contact with them. Thus the walls of the sepulchre would be white and fair-seeming to the eye, but they would contain within, dead men's bones and a mass of putrefying corruption. This is most probably the thought contained in St. Paul's comparison, ‘Thou whited wall;' although it is possible the allusion was simply to a wall roughly and coarsely built of clay, and then neatly and carefully coloured white to imitate stone on the outside.

This expression of anger on the part of Paul was no doubt a singular one; and although the hasty wrathful words were allowed by God to take the form, in this case, of a prophecy, they are not to be excused. Paul himself evidently felt he had done wrong by thus giving way to what seems to be a natural expression of fiery indignation. We hear him, after a moment's reflection, recalling them and expressing his sorrow for having uttered them. In this passage again, as so often in these Divine records, we cannot help noticing the strict accuracy of the compiler of these ‘Acts' of the first days; concealing nothing, passing over nothing which belonged to the memories of the first grand days of Christianity, though these memories contained not a few details which could not fail to mar in the eyes of coming generations the characters of those great ones, men like Peter, and Paul, and Barnabas, whom the Holy Ghost had made choice of to lay the early stories of the Church of Christ on earth.

We dare not blame very hardly this very natural ebullition of anger on the part of the long-suffering apostle, who was thus requited, by an insulting and painful blow, inflicted by the order of the high priest, for his brave patient life of utter self-denial and self-surrender, seeing that the noble Luther (quoted by Lange) thus writes of the transaction: ‘If St. Paul in this manner assails the priest who was appointed by the law of Moses, why should I hesitate to assail those painted bishops and monks that come from the pope, without any authority from God or from man.'

But though perhaps we should be slow to blame, we may at least compare the conduct of the servant Paul with the behaviour of the Master Christ, when He stood as a prisoner before these same haughty judges. Jerome felt this, and very hotly asks, ‘Where (here) is that patience of the Redeemer, who, when He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, opened not his mouth, but gently says to the men that struck Him: “If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why smitest thou Me?....” We do not then detract from the apostle; but we do proclaim the glory of the Lord, who, when He suffered in the flesh, rose grandly above all sense of injury done to the flesh, rose above the weakness of the flesh.'

For sittest thou to judge me after the law. As we shall point out further down, there is no ground for supposing that Paul, when he thus spoke in fierce wrath, was for a moment ignorant who it was to whom he addressed his bitter words, ‘thou whited wall.' He pointedly here addresses as ‘the whited wall' the one presiding over that august and venerable assembly with which he was once so intimately acquainted.