Acts 12


Acts 12 is the twelfth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It records the death of the first apostle, James, son of Zebedee, followed by the miraculous escape of Peter from prison, the death of Herod Agrippa I, and the early ministry of Barnabas and Paul of Tarsus. The book containing this chapter is anonymous, but early Christian tradition uniformly affirmed that Luke composed this book as well as the Gospel of Luke.

Text

The original text was written in Koine Greek. This chapter is divided into 25 verses.

Textual witnesses

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter are:
This chapter mentions the following places:
estimated that these events took place in 44 AD, the year of the death of Herod Agrippa, at the same time as the prophets from Jerusalem travelled to Antioch and returned with aid for the Judean church. The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges suggests 43 AD.

Herod Persecutes the Apostles (12:1–5)

Sometimes after the events in previous chapter, the apostles in Jerusalem are harassed by a new persecution by a "Herod", not Herod Antipas who was involved in the trial of Jesus but Agrippa I, a grandson of Herod the Great, resulting the killing of James the son of Zebedee and the imprisonment of Simon Peter.

Peter Freed from Prison (12:6–11)

This part of the chapter tells that after Peter was put into prison by King Herod, on the night before his trial an angel appeared to him, and told him to leave. Peter's chains fell off, and he followed the angel out of prison, thinking it was a vision. The prison doors opened of their own accord, and the angel led Peter into the city.

Verse 7

This verse is referred to in Charles Wesley's hymn And Can It Be.

Peter's Reception by the Church (12:12–17)

Peter's reception by the church in this account has an element of humor that far from expecting their prayers to be answered, the believers are completely taken aback when Peter knocks at the door that the maid Rhoda runs back to the house instead of quickly open the door, so despite his supernatural escape, when prison doors was opened up for him, the house doors 'remain obstinately closed' for Peter.

Verse 12

The accounts focus briefly back to the prison, where Herod vents his frustration on his subordinates. There is an irony in the situation that 'neither the soldiers nor Herod share the readers' privileged knowledge of Peter's secret' and whereabouts. Herod's sensational death was well documented in Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews, and while it is independent from Luke's account, both have 'Herod dying a horrible death as a punishment for being acclaimed as divine'.

Verse 23

This part contrasts the death of the persecutor with the successful growth of God's word with the expansion of the church by God's power. Verse 25 provides a narrative link of the completed relief mission by the major characters from this point on as they return to Antioch.

Verse 25