Acts 12:6-7

12:6 On that very night before Herod was going to bring him out for trial, ¹  Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, while ²  guards in front of the door were keeping watch ³  over the prison. 12:7 Suddenly ⁴  an angel of the Lord ⁵  appeared, and a light shone in the prison cell. He struck ⁶  Peter on the side and woke him up, saying, “Get up quickly!” And the chains fell off Peter’s ⁷  wrists. ⁸ 

Acts 21:33

21:33 Then the commanding officer ⁹  came up and arrested ¹⁰  him and ordered him to be tied up with two chains; ¹¹  he ¹²  then asked who he was and what ¹³  he had done.

Acts 26:29

26:29 Paul replied, “I pray to God that whether in a short or a long time ¹⁴  not only you but also all those who are listening to me today could become such as I am, except for these chains.” ¹⁵ 

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¹ tn Grk “was going to bring him out,” but the upcoming trial is implied. See Acts 12:4.

² tn Grk “two chains, and.” Logically it makes better sense to translate this as a temporal clause, although technically it is a coordinate clause in Greek.

³ tn Or “were guarding.”

⁴ tn Grk “And behold.” Because of the difference between Greek style, which often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” and English style, which generally does not, καί (kai) has not been translated here. The interjection ἰδού (idou), often difficult to translate into English, expresses the suddenness of the angel’s appearance.

⁵ tn Or “the angel of the Lord.” See the note on the word “Lord” in 5:19.

⁶ tn Grk “striking the side of Peter, he awoke him saying.” The term refers to a push or a light tap (BDAG 786 s.v. πατάσσω 1.a). The participle πατάξας (pataxa") has been translated as a finite verb due to requirements of contemporary English style.

⁷ tn Grk “his”; the referent (Peter) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁸ tn Grk “the hands,” but the wrist was considered a part of the hand.

⁹ tn Grk “the chiliarch” (an officer in command of a thousand soldiers). See note on the term “commanding officer” in v. 31.

¹⁰ tn Grk “seized.”

¹¹ tn The two chains would be something like handcuffs (BDAG 48 s.v. ἅλυσις and compare Acts 28:20).

¹² tn Grk “and he.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was begun in the translation, and καί (kai) has been replaced with a semicolon. “Then” has been supplied after “he” to clarify the logical sequence.

¹³ tn Grk “and what it is”; this has been simplified to “what.”

¹⁴ tn BDAG 703 s.v. ὀλίγος 2.b.β has “καὶ ἐν ὀλ. καὶ ἐν μεγάλῳ whether in a short or a long time vs. 29 (cf. B-D-F §195; GWhitaker, The Words of Agrippa to St. Paul: JTS 15, 1914, 82f; AFridrichsen, SymbOsl 14, ’35, 50; Field, Notes 141-43; s. Rob. 653).”

¹⁵ sn Except for these chains. The chains represented Paul’s unjust suffering for the sake of the message. His point was, in effect, “I do not care how long it takes. I only hope you and everyone else hearing this would become believers in Christ, but without my unjust suffering.”