Acts 23:14

PAUL'S DEFENSE BEFORE THE SAMHEDRIM DIVIDES THE RIVAL FACTIONS, FROM WHOSE VIOLENCE THE COMMANDANT HAS THE APOSTLE REMOVED INTO THE FORTRESS. (Act 23:1-10) Paul, earnestly beholding the council--with a look of conscious integrity and unfaltering courage, perhaps also recognizing some of his early fellow pupils. I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day--The word has an indirect reference to the "polity" or "commonwealth of Israel," of which he would signify that he had been, and was to that hour, an honest and God-fearing member.

The close of the foregoing chapter left Paul in the high priest's court, into which the chief captain (whether to his advantage or no I know not) had removed his cause from the mob; and, if his enemies act there against him with less noise, yet it is with more subtlety. Now here we have, I. Paul's protestation of his own integrity, and of a civil respect to the high priest, however he had upon a sudden spoken warmly to him, and justly (Act 23:1-5). II. Paul's prudent contrivance to get himself clear of them, by setting the Pharisees and Sadducees at variance one with another (Act 23:6-9). III. The governor's seasonable interposal to rescue him out of their hands likewise (Act 23:10). IV. Christ's more comfortable appearing to him, to animate him against those difficulties that lay before him, and to tell him what he must expect (Act 23:11). V. A bloody conspiracy of some desperate Jews to kill Paul, and their drawing in the chief priests and the elders to be aiders and abettors with them in it (Act 23:12-15). VI. The discovery of this conspiracy to Paul, and by him to the chief captain, who perceived so much of their inveterate malice against Paul that he had reason enough to believe the truth of it (Act 23:16-22). VII. The chief captain's care of Paul's safety, by which he prevented the execution of the design; he sent him away immediately under a strong guard from Jerusalem to Caesarea, which was now the residence of Felix, the Roman governor, and there he safely arrived (Act 23:23-35).