Discovery BoxActs 16:27 
Context16:27 When the jailer woke up 1 and saw the doors of the prison standing open, 2 he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, 3 because he assumed 4 the prisoners had escaped.
Acts 23:27
Context23:27 This man was seized 5 by the Jews and they were about to kill him, 6 when I came up 7 with the detachment 8 and rescued him, because I had learned that he was 9 a Roman citizen. 10
1 tn L&N 23.75 has “had awakened” here. It is more in keeping with contemporary English style, however, to keep the two verbal ideas parallel in terms of tense (“when the jailer woke up and saw”) although logically the second action is subsequent to the first.
2 tn The additional semantic component “standing” is supplied (“standing open”) to convey a stative nuance in English.
3 sn Was about to kill himself. The jailer’s penalty for failing to guard the prisoners would have been death, so he contemplated saving the leaders the trouble (see Acts 12:19; 27:42).
4 tn Or “thought.”
5 tn The participle συλλημφθέντα (sullhmfqenta) has been translated as a finite verb due to requirements of contemporary English style. The remark reviews events of Acts 21:27-40.
6 tn Grk “and was about to be killed by them.” The passive construction has been converted to an active one in the translation for stylistic reasons.
7 tn Or “approached.”
8 tn Normally this term means “army,” but according to BDAG 947 s.v. στράτευμα, “Of a smaller detachment of soldiers, sing. Ac 23:10, 27.” In the plural it can be translated “troops,” but it is singular here.
9 tn In Greek this is a present tense retained in indirect discourse.
10 tn The word “citizen” is supplied here for emphasis and clarity.
sn The letter written by the Roman commander Claudius Lysias was somewhat self-serving. He made it sound as if the rescue of a Roman citizen had been a conscious act on his part. In fact, he had made the discovery of Paul’s Roman citizenship somewhat later. See Acts 21:37-39 and 22:24-29.
