Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Acts 4:3

τήρησιν, ward, safe keeping, i.e. in a prison-house. And it is worth noticing on the use of it, that the Jews only employed imprisonment for this precautionary purpose. It was not a mode of punishment with them, and where we find mention of it so used in the Scripture records, the authorities who inflicted it were not Jewish.

ἑσπέρα ἤδη, already eventide. The Apostles had gone up to the Temple about the ninth hour, so sundown would soon come on, and the Jews were not allowed to give judgment in the night, while their day ceased at the twelfth hour. The Rabbis founded the prohibition on Jeremiah 21:12, ‘O house of David, thus saith the Lord, Execute judgment in the morning.’ In Mishna Sanhedrin IV. 1 it is said: ‘Judgments about money may be commenced in the day and concluded in the night, but judgments about life must be begun in the day and concluded in the day.’ And even the rule about the declaration of the new moon, which was looked on as a judicial proceeding, is similarly regulated (Mishna Rosh ha-Shanah III. 1), and it may not be declared unless the examination of the witnesses and all other preliminaries enjoined before its proclamation be completed before dark.

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Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Acts 4:3

Old Testament

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