Acts 22:22-24

The Roman Commander Questions Paul

22:22 The crowd was listening to him until he said this. Then they raised their voices and shouted, “Away with this man from the earth! For he should not be allowed to live!” 22:23 While they were screaming and throwing off their cloaks and tossing dust in the air, 22:24 the commanding officer 10  ordered Paul 11  to be brought back into the barracks. 12  He told them 13  to interrogate Paul 14  by beating him with a lash 15  so that he could find out the reason the crowd 16  was shouting at Paul 17  in this way.


tn Grk “They were listening”; the referent (the crowd) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

tn Grk “until this word.”

sn Until he said this. Note it is the mention of Paul’s mission to the Gentiles with its implication of ethnic openness that is so disturbing to the audience.

tn Grk “And.” To indicate the logical sequence, καί (kai) has been translated as “then” here.

tn Grk “and said.”

tn Grk “this one.”

tn BDAG 491 s.v. καθήκω has “to be appropriate, come/reach to, be proper/fitting…Usu. impers. καθήκει it comes (to someone)…foll. by acc. and inf….οὐ καθῆκεν αὐτὸν ζῆν he should not be allowed to live Ac 22:22.”

tn The participle κραυγαζόντων (kraugazontwn) has been translated temporally.

tn Or “outer garments.”

sn Their cloaks. The outer garment, or cloak, was taken off and laid aside to leave the arms free (perhaps in this case as preparation for throwing stones).

sn The crowd’s act of tossing dust in the air indicated they had heard something disturbing and offensive. This may have been a symbolic gesture, indicating Paul’s words deserved to be thrown to the wind, or it may have simply resulted from the fact they had nothing else to throw at him at the moment.

10 tn Grk “the chiliarch” (an officer in command of a thousand soldiers). In Greek the term χιλίαρχος (ciliarco") literally described the “commander of a thousand,” but it was used as the standard translation for the Latin tribunus militum or tribunus militare, the military tribune who commanded a cohort of 600 men.

11 tn Grk “him”; the referent (Paul) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

12 tn Or “the headquarters.” BDAG 775 s.v. παρεμβολή 2 has “barracks/headquarters of the Roman troops in Jerusalem Ac 21:34, 37; 22:24; 23:10, 16, 32.”

13 tn Grk “into the barracks, saying.” This is a continuation of the same sentence in Greek using the participle εἴπας (eipas), but due to the length and complexity of the Greek sentence a new sentence was begun in the translation here. The direct object “them” has been supplied; it is understood in Greek.

14 tn Grk “him”; the referent (Paul) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

15 sn To interrogate Paul by beating him with a lash. Under the Roman legal system it was customary to use physical torture to extract confessions or other information from prisoners who were not Roman citizens and who were charged with various crimes, especially treason or sedition. The lashing would be done with a whip of leather thongs with pieces of metal or bone attached to the ends.

16 tn Grk “they”; the referent (the crowd) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

17 tn Grk “him”; the referent (Paul) has been specified in the translation for clarity.