Acts 12:6-19--Peter Is Rescued

Acts 12:6-19
English Standard Version

Peter Is Rescued
6 Now when Herod was about to bring him out, on that very night, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries before the door were guarding the prison. 7 And behold, an angel of the Lord stood next to him, and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him, saying, “Get up quickly.” And the chains fell off his hands. 8 And the angel said to him, “Dress yourself and put on your sandals.” And he did so. And he said to him, “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me.” 9 And he went out and followed him. He did not know that what was being done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision. 10 When they had passed the first and the second guard, they came to the iron gate leading into the city. It opened for them of its own accord, and they went out and went along one street, and immediately the angel left him. 11 When Peter came to himself, he said, “Now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting.”

12 When he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose other name was Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying. 13 And when he knocked at the door of the gateway, a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer. 14 Recognizing Peter's voice, in her joy she did not open the gate but ran in and reported that Peter was standing at the gate. 15 They said to her, “You are out of your mind.” But she kept insisting that it was so, and they kept saying, “It is his angel!” 16 But Peter continued knocking, and when they opened, they saw him and were amazed. 17 But motioning to them with his hand to be silent, he described to them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. And he said, “Tell these things to James and to the brothers.” Then he departed and went to another place.

​18 Now when day came, there was no little disturbance among the soldiers over what had become of Peter. 19 And after Herod searched for him and did not find him, he examined the sentries and ordered that they should be put to death. Then he went down from Judea to Caesarea and spent time there.

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We pick things up right where we left them last time.  James the son of Zebedee is dead, Peter is arrested and about to be put on trial by Herod Agrippa I, and the Church has been praying all throughout the Passover season for Peter's safe release.  This should bring back some memories for us (as I'm sure it did for the Church) of the arrest, trial and crucifixion of Jesus.  However, we're going to see that Peter is not worried, probably because of a promise that Jesus made to him in John 21:18.  We would hardly call Peter "old" at this point as this is at most about 10 years after the crucifixion of Jesus as we know Herod Agrippa I (who is the Herod who put James to death and arrested Peter here) died shortly before 44 AD, so this could be the Passover season of 43 AD at the latest.  My point in saying this is that the events of the crucifixion of Jesus would probably still be fresh in people's minds and Peter is hardly an "old man" at this point.

I think for this reason, Peter is sleeping soundly between two guards and with four squads of guards guarding him and sentries guarding the prison doors.  All indications would have been that Herod wanted to make sure that Peter didn't escape because he intended to kill Peter just like he did James, but Peter seemed to know that this wasn't going to be the end for him, so he slept soundly.

We then see an angel of the Lord sent to Peter and a light shone and lit up the cell.  The angel struck Peter on the side to wake him up and told Peter to quickly get up, and the chains fell off of Peter.  Then Peter is told to get dressed and to follow the angel.  Peter wasn't sure if this was a vison or was for real, but the angel led him past the guards and the sentries and to the iron gate leading to the city, which opened for them.  They travelled but one street together before the angel left Peter and Peter understood he had been set free and knew the way back to where he should go from there.

He went to the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark, and the Church was gathered there together in her house praying for Peter.  When Peter called to them from outside the gate, the servant girl ran in to tell them Peter was standing at the gate, yet they seemed to no believe that their prayers would be answered as they told her that she was out of her mind.  Didn't she understand that he was in prison and about to be put to death?  They thought she was seeing things, making up a story, or maybe worse that she had seen his spirit and that he was already dead (Jesus faced many of the same kinds of issues with his disciples after His resurrection as many didn't believe that he had come back from the dead and that's figuratively what is going on here with Peter as everyone in the Church seemed to expect this imprisonment to end in death for him).

Peter is persistent and kept knocking and finally someone came to let him in.  When they finally come he motioned for them to keep quiet (I'm sure the guards were looking for him about this time) and he went in with them and told them all that the Lord had done to rescue him from prison.  He gives them instructions to tell these things to James, that would be the half-brother of Jesus who wrote the epistle of James, and the other brothers, as Peter was not going to stay in that place.  We don't know exactly where he goes after this.  Peter is no longer a main character as we will start the next main portion of the book of Acts in the next chapter that will take us to the end of the book and will follow Paul and his companions (of which Luke is one of them) on their missionary journeys to take the gospel to "the uttermost ends of the earth."

We will return to Jerusalem from time to time as Paul is still a devout Jew who returns to the Temple to offer sacrifices for the required holidays and desires to celebrate the Passover there every year, and we'll also see that Paul will be gathering a collection to help the Church in Jerusalem weather the famine that was prophesied earlier.  Some of the areas that Paul would travel to would be wealthy and they would give out of their abundance.  Others were poor and would give out of their scarcity, and some would not even be asked to give, for Paul knew they were too focused on themselves to think of anyone else (the Corinthians were extremely wealthy but not very generous it seems).  Before we get to that part of the story though, God is going to execute His judgment on Herod Agrippa I.  Things looked like Herod and the Jews were going to win at the beginning of this chapter with the death of James and the imprisonment of Peter, and now it is Herod who will die, Peter is going to be released, and God already plans to have James the half-brother of Jesus stand up and take the place of James the son of Zebedee (and James the half-brother of Jesus will be a strong leader for the church in Jerusalem).