Acts 23:3

"God is going to strike you": Compare with Acts 13:10. "You whitewashed wall!": "The metaphor suggests. tottering wall whose precarious condition has been disguised by. generous coat of whitewash" (Bruce p. 451). Compare with Matthew 23:27. And, in. sense, God did bring this evil man to ruin. "Do you sit to try me according to the Law, and in violation of the Law order me to be struck?": Various writers have accused Paul of losing his cool at this point and being involved in sinful anger, but McGarvey notes, "This remark was not an outburst of improper passion. It was rather an angry expression of. righteous judgment as to how God would deal with. man so unjust and hypocritical. It was an incident like that in the experience of our Lord, when He looked around with anger on. similar set of men (Mark 3:5)" (p. 223). "Herein was the man's hypocrisy: he pretended to be doing one thing (judging according to the Law), but was actually doing another (violating the Law). The rights of defendants were carefully safeguarded in the Jewish law (Leviticus 19:35). Such efforts at intimidation of the defendant were not part of. fair trial. These were fine judges, who applied the law to others, but not to themselves" (Reese p. 817).