Acts 21:32, commentary and pictures

The chief captain was Claudius Lysias, commander of the Roman garrison, who well knew the turbulent elements he had to deal with. When word reached him that all Jerusalem was in an uproar, he immediately rushed down to the temple court with his officers and centurions and a strong force of armed soldiers.

When the mob saw the chief captain and the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul, so his arrival interrupted their attack and rescued him. Ignorant of the cause of the tumult but seeing the multitude's rage directed against Paul, he mistakenly concluded Paul was the Egyptian rebel who had eluded Roman vigilance, and seized and bound him.

The multitude's rage was unbounded at losing their prey, and priests and people, actuated by the same satanic spirit that thirty years before had clamored for the blood of the Son of God, surged and pressed so closely that the soldiers had to carry Paul in their arms up the staircase amid deafening shouts for him to be taken away. The rescue brought Paul to the castle stairs, where he was granted leave to speak to the people. He beckoned with his hand in a way that attracted attention while his bearing commanded respect, and when great silence fell he defended himself in the Hebrew tongue, whose familiar sound made them listen even more quietly.