Acts 23:12Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

'And they bound themselves by an oath,' he says. Do you see how vengeful they are, and how stubborn in malice? What does 'they bound themselves by an oath' mean? It means, in other words, that they will abandon faith in God if they do not carry out their intention concerning Paul. Therefore they remained under the curse forever, because they did not kill Paul. See how they bound themselves by an oath as though by some necessity. Here fasting itself becomes the father of murder. As Herod bound himself by an oath as though by some necessity, so did they. Such is the devil's deceit: under the appearance of piety he lays snares. They ought to have come forward, made accusations, and convened a tribunal. This is not the work of priests, but of robbers; not of rulers, but of criminals. What madness! They senselessly subject themselves to a curse.

The Lord says, 'Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness' (Matt 5:6). These men, by contrast, hunger for unrighteousness and thirst for blood. They refuse bodily food until they are sated with the blood of the righteous man. But 'there is no wisdom, nor understanding, nor counsel against the Lord' (Prov 21:30). For Paul also, as we saw above, offered sacrifice, cut his hair, and walked barefoot. To the Jews he became as a Jew (see Acts 18:18; Acts 21:23-26; 1 Cor 9:20). Nevertheless, he did not escape the bonds foretold to him (see Acts 21:11). Here also, although these men take counsel together, swear oaths, and plot, the Apostle nevertheless remains alive. Thus he may bear witness to Christ in Rome, as had been foretold.

The Jews were greatly angered that the Roman official was not entirely on their side. They were also angered that Paul's trial had not fulfilled their desire to hand the Apostle over to death. Then certain fanatics from among them, forty in number, vowed neither to drink nor eat until they had killed Paul. To carry out their murderous design, they told the high priest and the other ranks of the Sanhedrin to ask the tribune to bring Paul to them again for trial. During his journey to the Sanhedrin, they intended to kill him. But their design was discovered and brought to the tribune's knowledge by Paul's nephew. The tribune continued to respect and protect Paul as a Roman citizen.

But the Apostle's life was not safe in Jerusalem, even under Roman protection. On the very next day it became known that a conspiracy, sealed by an oath, had been formed against him by fanatics. Jewish fanaticism at this time was in extreme agitation. By all kinds of disturbances and violence it had been driven to a diseased frenzy. Many secret murderers had multiplied, the so-called Sicarii. They were ready to plunge a dagger into anyone who merely seemed dangerous to the people, to their faith, or to their political rights. Now forty men swore neither to eat nor drink until they had killed the Apostle Paul.

Some Jews formed a plot, that is, they conspired against Paul. It is only a conjecture that these were the robber Sicarii (Acts 21:38), who undertook to kill Paul perhaps at the instigation of the Sadducees and the high priest Ananias himself. This is not fully justified by the course of the subsequent narrative (v. 14). More probably, they were the same Jews from Asia Minor who had stirred up this whole persecution of Paul (Acts 21:27), joined with other local enemies of the Apostle. They probably did not act without the assistance of the Sadducees. 'They bound themselves by an oath.' They laid upon themselves a vow with an oath, that is, with an invocation of God's punishment upon their heads if they did not fulfill their vow to kill Paul. As an expression of their readiness to accept such punishment, they resolved neither to eat nor drink until they fulfilled the vow they had laid upon themselves.

The oath of the forty enemies of the Apostle Paul neither to eat nor drink until they killed him was a bold act of self-will. It aimed to subject God's will to itself under the pretext of doing something seemingly worthy, namely fasting, and for a supposedly good purpose, the killing of an imagined enemy of God. This is a terrible and fanatical abuse of the sacred custom of swearing by the name of God, which is permitted in the most important circumstances. At the same time, it is one of the clearest examples of what an oath must not be. 'Seeing that everything had failed, these wicked men begin to act on their own. Thus malice never rests, despite any obstacles. Yet how many circumstances disposed them to calm their anger and come to their senses!' 'Do you see,' says St.