For the multitude of the people followed after, crying, Away with him.
The multitude following after Paul took up the cry for him to be taken away, which was a demand that he be taken away and put to death. The pursuing mob meant to kill him by stoning, as Stephen had been stoned years before. He had risked his life by entering the temple courts at feast time, when strangers from all regions thronged Jerusalem and he was well known from his Gentile mission, and after passing unnoticed for several days he was recognized while speaking with the priest about purification sacrifices by Jews from Asia who had been defeated in controversy with him at Ephesus and were enraged by his success in raising up a church there. His accusers seized him with demonic fury on the false charges that he taught everywhere against the people and the law and the temple and had polluted the holy place by bringing Greeks inside, yet the temple-pollution charge rested only on conjecture because he had been seen in the city with Trophimus the Ephesian though he had not brought him inside, and though his own entry as a Jew violated no law since only uncircumcised entry was punishable by death. The cry spread through the temple courts until all the city was moved and the people ran together in wild excitement, and only reverence for the temple kept him from being torn in pieces on the spot before they dragged him with violent blows and vindictive triumph from the sacred enclosure into the court of the Gentiles, where the Levites closed the gates behind them lest the holy place be polluted with blood.
Roman intervention interrupted the killing when Claudius Lysias, told that all Jerusalem was in an uproar over the attempt to kill Paul, rushed down with soldiers and centurions and the beating stopped at the sight of the soldiers. Lysias seized Paul and bound him with two chains while mistaking him for an Egyptian rebel, and because conflicting accusations in the tumult kept Lysias from learning the truth he ordered Paul to be taken to the castle. Rage became unbounded when the people saw their prey about to be taken from them to the Roman castle, and they surged and pressed so closely that walking became impossible and the soldiers had to bear Paul in their arms up the staircase from the temple into the castle. Priests and people together joined in the deafening shout from the staircase and from the crowd below, actuated by the same satanic spirit that thirty years before had clamored for the blood of the Son of God.
In the midst of that violent pursuit Paul remained calm and self-possessed, with his mind stayed upon God and the assurance that angels of heaven were about him. He was unwilling to be taken away without making an effort to set the truth before his countrymen, so he asked the chief captain for permission to speak to him and then to the people. Permission was granted, and his gesture and use of Hebrew brought the crowd to silence.
The multitude following after Paul took up the cry for him to be taken away, which was a demand that he be taken away and put to death. The pursuing mob meant to kill him by stoning, as Stephen had been stoned years before. He had risked his life by entering the temple courts at feast time, when strangers from all regions thronged Jerusalem and he was well known from his Gentile mission, and after passing unnoticed for several days he was recognized while speaking with the priest about purification sacrifices by Jews from Asia who had been defeated in controversy with him at Ephesus and were enraged by his success in raising up a church there. His accusers seized him with demonic fury on the false charges that he taught everywhere against the people and the law and the temple and had polluted the holy place by bringing Greeks inside, yet the temple-pollution charge rested only on conjecture because he had been seen in the city with Trophimus the Ephesian though he had not brought him inside, and though his own entry as a Jew violated no law since only uncircumcised entry was punishable by death. The cry spread through the temple courts until all the city was moved and the people ran together in wild excitement, and only reverence for the temple kept him from being torn in pieces on the spot before they dragged him with violent blows and vindictive triumph from the sacred enclosure into the court of the Gentiles, where the Levites closed the gates behind them lest the holy place be polluted with blood.
Roman intervention interrupted the killing when Claudius Lysias, told that all Jerusalem was in an uproar over the attempt to kill Paul, rushed down with soldiers and centurions and the beating stopped at the sight of the soldiers. Lysias seized Paul and bound him with two chains while mistaking him for an Egyptian rebel, and because conflicting accusations in the tumult kept Lysias from learning the truth he ordered Paul to be taken to the castle. Rage became unbounded when the people saw their prey about to be taken from them to the Roman castle, and they surged and pressed so closely that walking became impossible and the soldiers had to bear Paul in their arms up the staircase from the temple into the castle. Priests and people together joined in the deafening shout from the staircase and from the crowd below, actuated by the same satanic spirit that thirty years before had clamored for the blood of the Son of God.
In the midst of that violent pursuit Paul remained calm and self-possessed, with his mind stayed upon God and the assurance that angels of heaven were about him. He was unwilling to be taken away without making an effort to set the truth before his countrymen, so he asked the chief captain for permission to speak to him and then to the people. Permission was granted, and his gesture and use of Hebrew brought the crowd to silence.