‘And when Peter was come to himself, he said, “Now I know of a truth, that the Lord has sent forth his angel and delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from all the expectation of the people of the Jews.” '

Once Peter had gathered his wits, he could only marvel and say, “God has sent His messenger, his angel, and has delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from all that the Jews anticipated that they could do to me.” The words express what Luke is seeking to put over. It was the whole of Jerusalem that was rejoicing at what it could do to this man of God, but God had totally thwarted them. They were waiting in expectancy for his demise.

Peter had been in no doubt about what his fate was going to be in the morning. But now all his enemies had been put to shame. The king of Israel and the people of Israel had planned together his demise, but both had now been thwarted. The rulers and the people had taken counsel against the Lord and against His anointed (Psalms 1), and they had been defeated. He would march on in triumph with God ‘in another place'. But in contrast the king would die a horrible death and Israel, ‘the people of the Jews', would be left in darkness, and in the not too distant future many of them would perish in the flames of the destruction of Jerusalem. Peter, however, would ‘go to another place'. And as so often in Acts, Peter speaks for all the Apostles.

We note here a similar phrase to that which he had used with Cornelius. There he had spoken of ‘the land of the Jews'. Here he spoke of ‘the people of the Jews'. It was distancing what was spoken of from speaker and hearer. It was now Peter, the Apostles and the church who represented the true Israel (Ephesians 2:11; 1 Peter 2:9). This people were no longer so. ‘They are not all Israel who are of Israel', Paul would later declare (Romans 9:6). These were simply now ‘the people of the Jews'.

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