The Aftermath of Peters Escape

Back at the Prison (vv 18-19)

When the guards awoke in the morning, they found no one attached to their chains and likely no evidence of an escape other than the obvious fact that Peter was not there.

After interrogating the guards and failing to locate Peter, Herod had the guards executed.

This was in accordance with Roman law, which specified that a guard who allowed the escape of a prisoner was to bear the same penalty the escapee would have suffered.

Agrippa had every intention of subjecting Peter to the same fate as James.

Herod was a suspicious man, and the guards could have proffered no reasonable explanation for Peter’s escape.

After court martialing and executing the offending guards, Herod in a huff went down from Judea to Caesarea and was spending time there.

His plan had blown up in his face, and he needed a vacation to pull himself together.

Unfortunately for him, he still failed to learn that he could not fight God.

That mistake, which cost him Peter and his prestige with the Jews, was shortly to cost him his life.

God’s Punishment Cannot Be Avoided (vv 20-23)

Several months had passed since Peter’s escape when, for reasons unknown to us, Herod became very angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon.

They were outside Herod’s jurisdiction, but since Old Testament times their country had been fed by the region ruled by Herod.

1 Kings 5:11 ESV

11 while Solomon gave Hiram 20,000 cors of wheat as food for his household, and 20,000 cors of beaten oil. Solomon gave this to Hiram year by year.

Ezra 3:7 ESV

7 So they gave money to the masons and the carpenters, and food, drink, and oil to the Sidonians and the Tyrians to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea, to Joppa, according to the grant that they had from Cyrus king of Persia.

Ezekiel 27:17 ESV

17 Judah and the land of Israel traded with you; they exchanged for your merchandise wheat of Minnith, meal, honey, oil, and balm.

The phrase “eaten of worms,” in Greek is skolakobrotos. The root word skolax means “a specific head structure of a tapeworm.” Since the word scolex (plural scolices) is applied to the head of tapeworms, Herod’s death was almost certainly due to the rupture of a cyst formed by a tapeworm. There are several kinds of tapeworms, but one of the most common ones found in sheep-growing countries is the dog tape, Echinococcus granulosus. The heaviest infections come from areas where sheep and cattle are raised. Sheep and cattle serve as intermediate hosts for the parasite. The dog eats the infected meat, then man gets the eggs from the dog, usually by fecal contamination of hair. The disease is characterized by the formation of cysts, generally on the right lobe of the liver; these may extend down into the abdominal cavity. The rupture of such a cyst may release as many as two million scolices. The developing worms inside of the cysts are called scolices, because the anterior region constitutes the major part of development at this stage. When the cyst ruptures, the entrance of cellular debris along with the scolices may cause sudden death. The use of the word scolex is not limited to this reference about Herod; the term also appears in Mark 9:44. A literal translation of the phrase in Mark 9:44 would read, “where their scolex dieth not.” This usage is very interesting because the tapeworm keeps propagating itself. Each section of the worm is a self-contained unit which has both male and female parts. The posterior part matures and forms hundreds of worm eggs. The word scolex in this text portrays a biological description of permanence which the text demands for the comparison. (Science in the Bible [Chicago: Moody, 1978], 261–62)

According to Josephus, Herod lingered on for five days, in terrible pain.

Amid all his pomp and majesty, he suffered an ignominious and shameful death.

So ended the reign and life of the man who had dared to touch two of God’s apostles.

His crime for which he was executed (A.D. 44) was that he did not give God the glory, the very crime for which all the unregenerate who reject God will be condemned.

Gods Purpose Cannot Be Stopped (vv 24-25)

Again Luke keeps us on track with the church’s growth by reporting that despite the furious opposition of men, the word of the Lord continued to grow and to be multiplied.

They could no more stop its spread than King Canute could stop the tide from coming in.

Verses 24–25 mark an important transition in Acts. They introduce again the apostle Paul, with whose ministry the rest of the book will be primarily concerned.