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Acts 21:37-39
New Catholic Bible
Acts 21:37-39
New Catholic Bible
37 Just as he was about to be taken into the barracks, Paul said to the commander, “May I say something to you?” The commander replied, “So you speak Greek? 38 Then you are not the Egyptian[a] who recently started a revolt and led the four thousand assassins into the desert.” 39 Paul asserted, “I am a Jew from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city. May I have your permission to speak to the people?”
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- Acts 21:38 The Egyptian: in A.D. 54, an Egyptian agitator, Ben Stada, had stirred up the Jewish nationalists to whom reference is made here, as we know from the historian Flavius Josephus. The Roman authorities were forced to put down the riot, and thousands were killed. Assassins: literally, sicarii, violent nationalists who carried a short dagger, called sica in Latin, and did not hesitate to use it.
