Acts 12:20Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Then, recounting a historical event, the writer also gives the names, so that it may be clear that he speaks the truth about everything. "Having won over Blastus," he says, "the king's chamberlain, they asked for peace." They did this because there was a famine. It seems to me that Herod, wishing to attract the Tyrians and Sidonians, came to defend the Jews. He was angry with the former, while he so greatly gratified the latter. Notice that Blastus inclines him toward peace. So easily was this wretched man given over to anger and then calmed again, always a slave of the people and possessing nothing independent in himself.

"Now Herod was angry with the Tyrians and Sidonians..." It is of no small importance that the writer mentioned this history. From it one sees how immediately punishment came crashing down upon him and overtook him.

Soon the judgment of God was revealed against the persecutor of the Church of Christ. Herod was angry for some reason with the Tyrians and Sidonians.

For the inhabitants of these coastal trading cities, Herod's possessions were the main place where goods brought from other countries were exchanged for grain, which they themselves did not cultivate.

It was therefore disadvantageous for them to be at odds with Herod. They sent chosen representatives to intercede for the restoration of the peaceful relations they had maintained until then with the ruler of Palestine.

With the help of Blastus, the king's chamberlain, whom the delegates succeeded in winning to their side, they obtained an audience with the king.

Herod was angry, and so forth: immediately after the account of Peter's liberation, the writer of Acts describes the death of his persecutor Herod. He presents it as God's punishment for Herod's persecution of the Church of Christ, with the circumstance that preceded this death.

The writer of Acts does not indicate the cause of Herod's anger against the Tyrians and Sidonians. It probably concerned the commercial interests of the king and his subjects.

But they, having come to an agreement, came to him. That is, the inhabitants of Tyre and Sidon, after consulting among themselves about the state of affairs and agreeing on how to act in this case, sent a delegation to the king's residence, Caesarea.

Herod's anger against Tyre and Sidon was undoubtedly based on some financial accounts, in which Herod, as a wasteful man, was not beyond reproach.

Yet the Tyrians and Sidonians felt their economic dependence on Herod and sought his favor. For this purpose they first won over a man close to Herod, his household steward, or chamberlain.

As one brought by Herod from Rome, he was able to incline Herod himself toward an agreement. All this took place soon after Herod's return from Jerusalem.

But the writer of Acts reports this event as the occasion on which God's wrath burst forth against Herod. It was as though Herod had summoned spectators for his vile death.

These were people capable of spreading his sorrowful fame throughout the whole world, in whose various regions the Tyrians and Sidonians had their commercial representatives.