Chapter 12
James Killed and Peter Imprisoned
1 Now about that time Herod the king laid hands on some who belonged to the church in order to mistreat them.
2 And he had James the brother of John put to death with a sword.
3 When he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. (Now these were the days of Unleavened Bread.)
4 When he had seized him, he put him in prison, delivering him to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out before the people.
5 So Peter was kept in the prison, but prayer for him was being made fervently by the church to God.
Translator’s Notes — vv. 1–5:
v.1: “Herod the king” is Herod Agrippa I, grandson of Herod the Great (who attempted to kill the infant Jesus) and nephew of Herod Antipas (who beheaded John the Baptist and mocked Jesus at his trial). Agrippa was raised in Rome, was a personal friend of the emperor Caligula, and later of Claudius, who granted him rule over virtually all of the territory his grandfather had held. He reigned from AD 41–44. Unlike his grandfather, Agrippa was popular with the Jewish population because he presented himself as a devout observer of the Law and cultivated the support of the Pharisees. His persecution of the church was politically motivated: by targeting Christians, he could strengthen his standing with the Jewish establishment.
v.2: The execution of James the brother of John is narrated in a single sentence — one of the most abrupt and devastating verses in Acts. James, one of the inner circle of three (with Peter and John), the first of the Twelve to be martyred, is dispatched in ten Greek words. There is no speech, no trial scene, no dramatic last words. Luke gives James’s death less space than he gave to the death of Stephen (who was not even an apostle) or the death of Herod (who was an enemy). The brevity is itself a statement: in Luke’s narrative, the death of an apostle is not the point. The word of God is the point, and the word survives the death of its messengers.
μαχαίρῃ (machaira) — v.2: “With a sword” — execution by sword was a Roman method, quicker and considered more honorable than stoning (the Jewish method) or crucifixion. It suggests Herod exercised Roman-style judicial authority. Jesus had predicted that James and John would drink his cup (Mark 10:38–39). James is the first of the Twelve to do so. His brother John, according to tradition, will be the last to die — the only apostle to escape martyrdom.
v.3: “When he saw that it pleased the Jews” — Herod is a political calculator. James’s execution gained him popular approval, so he proceeded to arrest Peter during the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Passover week). The timing parallels Jesus’s arrest: Jesus was arrested during Passover; Peter is arrested during Passover. The parallel is deliberate. Herod intends to execute Peter after the festival, following the same logic as the chief priests with Jesus: avoid a disturbance during the holy days, then act.
v.4: Four squads of four soldiers each (sixteen soldiers total) guarding one fisherman. The security is extraordinary and reveals both the seriousness of Herod’s intention and the growing reputation of the movement: after the apostles’ earlier miraculous escape from prison (5:19), Herod is taking no chances. The Roman practice was for a prisoner to be chained between two soldiers, with two more guarding the door. The shifts rotated every three hours (the four watches of the night). Peter is in maximum security.
προσευχὴ ἦν ἐκτενῶς γινομένη (proseuchē ēn ektenōs ginomenē) — v.5: “Prayer was being made fervently by the church to God.” The word ἐκτενῶς (ektenōs) means “earnestly,” “with intense stretching,” “without ceasing.” The same word is used of Jesus’s prayer in Gethsemane in Luke 22:44 (“He prayed more earnestly”). The church has no political power, no legal recourse, no military force. All it has is prayer. Luke sets up the contrast starkly: Herod has sixteen soldiers and chains; the church has prayer. The chapter will reveal which is more powerful.
Peter’s Miraculous Escape
6 On the very night when Herod was about to bring him forward, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and guards in front of the door were watching over the prison.
7 And behold, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared and a light shone in the cell; and he struck Peter’s side and woke him up, saying, “Get up quickly.” And his chains fell off his hands.
8 And the angel said to him, “Gird 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 continued to follow, and 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 second guard, they came to the iron gate that leads into the city, which opened for them by itself; and they went out and went along one street, and immediately the angel departed from him.
11 When Peter came to himself, he said, “Now I know for 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.”
Translator’s Notes — vv. 6–11:
v.6: The scene opens on the eve of Peter’s planned execution. And Peter is sleeping. Chained between two soldiers, facing death in the morning, Peter sleeps. The detail is not incidental. Peter’s sleep signals either extraordinary trust in God or the peace that passes understanding — or both. The contrast with his behavior in Gethsemane, where he also slept while Jesus faced death (Luke 22:45–46), is poignant: the man who slept when he should have been awake now sleeps peacefully when any normal person would be rigid with fear. Something has changed in Peter.
v.7: The angel must strike Peter to wake him — he is sleeping that soundly. The word πατάξας (pataxas, “struck,” “tapped”) suggests a firm nudge to the ribs. The chains fall off (ἐξέπεσαν, exepesan, “fell away”) without being unlocked. The light (φῶς, phōs) shining in the cell is a theophanic marker — the same kind of light that marked divine appearances throughout the Old Testament and that blinded Saul on the Damascus road. God’s light enters the darkest place: a death-row prison cell on the night before execution.
vv.8–9: The angel’s instructions are comically domestic: “Put on your belt. Put on your sandals. Grab your cloak. Follow me.” A divine rescue with the tone of a parent getting a sleepy child ready for school. Peter obeys mechanically, thinking he is seeing a vision. The gap between what is happening (an angel is breaking him out of a maximum-security prison) and what Peter perceives (he thinks he is dreaming) adds a layer of almost comic bewilderment. The most dramatic rescue in Acts is experienced by its protagonist as a particularly vivid dream.
αὐτομάτη (automatē) — v.10: The iron gate opens “by itself” (αὐτομάτη, automatē — the origin of our word “automatic”). No key, no force, no mechanism. They pass the first guard, the second guard, and the gate, apparently unseen and unopposed. The passage through the gate has an exodus quality: the gates of captivity open at God’s command. After one street, the angel vanishes. The supernatural escort has served its purpose; Peter must now make his own way.
v.11: “When Peter came to himself” (ἐν ἑαυτῷ γενόμενος, en heautō genomenos — the same phrase used of the prodigal son in Luke 15:17, “when he came to his senses”). Peter wakes from his dreamlike state and realizes the rescue is real. His statement is precise: “The Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting.” The rescue is from two threats: Herod’s political power and the crowd’s bloodlust. Both have been defeated by an angel and a sleepy fisherman in sandals.
Peter at the House of Mary
12 And when he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John who was also called Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying.
13 When he knocked at the door of the gate, a servant-girl named Rhoda came to answer.
14 When she recognized Peter’s voice, because of her joy she did not open the gate, but ran in and announced that Peter was standing in front of the gate.
15 They said to her, “You are out of your mind!” But she kept insisting that it was so. They kept saying, “It is his angel.”
16 But Peter continued knocking; and when they opened the door, 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 led him out of the prison. And he said, “Report these things to James and the brothers.” Then he left and went to another place.
18 Now when day came, there was no small disturbance among the soldiers as to what could have become of Peter.
19 When Herod had searched for him and had not found him, he examined the guards and ordered that they be led away to execution. Then he went down from Judea to Caesarea and was spending time there.
Translator’s Notes — vv. 12–19:
v.12: The house of Mary, mother of John Mark, is one of the first identifiable “house churches” in Acts. The gathering of “many” for prayer indicates a substantial community. Some traditions identify this house with the “upper room” of chapters 1–2, though this cannot be confirmed. John Mark will later accompany Barnabas and Paul on the first missionary journey (12:25, 13:5), abandon them in Pamphylia (13:13), become the cause of the Barnabas-Paul split (15:37–39), and ultimately be reconciled with Paul (Colossians 4:10, 2 Timothy 4:11). Early church tradition identifies him as the author of the Gospel of Mark, writing under Peter’s influence — a fitting connection, given that Peter comes to his mother’s house in this scene.
Ῥόδη (Rhodē) — vv.13–15: Rhoda (“Rose”) is one of the most delightful minor characters in the New Testament. She recognizes Peter’s voice through the door, becomes so overjoyed that she forgets to open the gate, and runs back to tell the praying community. Their response is to call her insane (μαίνῃ, mainē, “you are mad”). She insists. They propose an alternative: “It is his angel” (ὁ ἄγγελός ἐστιν αὐτοῦ) — reflecting a Jewish belief that each person had a guardian angel who could appear in their likeness. The scene is rich with irony: the church is praying fervently for Peter’s release, and when God answers their prayer, they refuse to believe it. Peter stands knocking at the gate while the community debates whether their own prayers could possibly have worked. Luke includes this scene because it is both theologically instructive (God answers prayer, even the prayers of people with insufficient faith) and deeply, recognizably human. These are real people, and their response to a miracle is confusion, argument, and a locked gate.
v.16: Peter “continued knocking” — the imperfect tense (ἐπέμενεν κρούων, epemenen krouōn) implies persistent, repeated knocking. Peter, who has just been freed from prison by an angel, is now locked out of a prayer meeting. The apostle who walked through iron gates that opened by themselves cannot get through a wooden door because a servant girl forgot to unlatch it. The comedy is deliberate: God’s power overcomes chains and prison gates but the human comedy of miscommunication and disbelief creates its own obstacles.
v.17: Peter’s first act after silencing the astonished crowd is to send a message to “James and the brothers.” This James is not the son of Zebedee (who has just been executed, v.2) but James the brother of Jesus, who has quietly emerged as the leader of the Jerusalem church. This is the first indication in Acts of James’s leadership role, which will become fully apparent at the Jerusalem Council (chapter 15). The passing of leadership from Peter to James is happening here: Peter sends a report to James and then leaves Jerusalem (“went to another place”). Peter will return for the Jerusalem Council, but after chapter 12 he is no longer the central figure of the Jerusalem church. James is.
v.17: “Then he left and went to another place” (εἰς ἕτερον τόπον, eis heteron topon) — Luke is deliberately vague about Peter’s destination. Numerous traditions place him in Antioch, in Rome, or elsewhere. Luke’s silence probably serves a practical purpose: if the account was written while persecution continued, revealing Peter’s hiding place would have endangered him. The vagueness is protective, not careless.
v.19: Herod examines the guards and orders their execution. Roman military law held that guards who allowed a prisoner to escape were subject to the same penalty the prisoner would have received. The sixteen soldiers who guarded Peter face death because an angel opened the chains and the gates. The human cost of the miracle is sobering: Peter is free, and the guards pay with their lives. Luke does not editorialize on this; he simply reports it. The world in which the early church operated was brutal, and divine rescue for one person did not eliminate the violence of the system.
The Death of Herod
20 Now Herod was very angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon; and with one accord they came to him, and having won over Blastus the king’s chamberlain, they were asking for peace, because their country was fed by the king’s country.
21 On an appointed day Herod, having put on his royal apparel, took his seat on the rostrum and began delivering an address to them.
22 The people kept crying out, “The voice of a god and not of a man!”
23 And immediately an angel of the Lord struck him because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and died.
24 But the word of the Lord continued to grow and to be multiplied.
25 And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had fulfilled their mission, taking along with them John, who was also called Mark.
Translator’s Notes — vv. 20–25:
v.20: The political background is precise. Tyre and Sidon, the great Phoenician port cities (in modern Lebanon), depended on the agricultural hinterland of Galilee and Judea for grain supply. Herod Agrippa controlled the food supply, giving him leverage. The delegations from Tyre and Sidon bribe Blastus, the king’s chamberlain (τὸν ἐπὶ τοῦ κοιτῶνος, ton epi tou koitōnos, literally “the one over the bedchamber” — a powerful position in any royal court) to arrange an audience. The scene is one of political theater: the powerful come seeking favor from the more powerful.
v.21: Josephus provides a remarkably parallel account of this event (Antiquities 19.343–350). He describes Herod appearing at a festival in Caesarea wearing a garment made entirely of silver, which caught the morning sunlight and blazed with terrifying brilliance. The crowd hailed him as divine, and Herod did not refuse the acclamation. Josephus reports that Herod immediately saw an owl perched above him (which he recognized as an omen of death from an earlier encounter with a prophecy) and was seized with severe abdominal pain. He died five days later. The agreement between Luke and Josephus on the core elements — the royal appearance, the divine acclamation, the immediate onset of fatal illness — is striking and suggests a shared historical tradition.
θεοῦ φωνὴ καὶ οὐκ ἀνθρώπου (theou phōnē kai ouk anthrōpou) — v.22: “The voice of a god and not of a man!” — the crowd acclaims Herod as divine. In the Greco-Roman world, ruler worship was common: the emperor was worshipped as a god in the eastern provinces, and client kings like Herod could receive similar acclamation. The crowd’s cry is political flattery expressed in religious language. But Luke treats it as a theological crisis: the question is not whether the crowd means it sincerely but whether Herod will accept it.
οὐκ ἔδωκεν τὴν δόξαν τῷ θεῷ (ouk edōken tēn doxan tō theō) — v.23: “Because he did not give God the glory” — this is the stated reason for Herod’s death. He accepted divine honors that belong to God alone. The contrast with Peter at Cornelius’s house (10:25–26) is exact: when Cornelius fell at Peter’s feet, Peter immediately said “Stand up; I too am just a man.” Peter refused what Herod accepted. The angel who freed Peter from prison (v.7) now strikes Herod with death (the same verb, πατάσσω, patassō, is used for both the tap on Peter’s side and the blow to Herod). The same angelic power that liberates the humble destroys the proud.
γενόμενος σκωληκόβρωτος (genomenos skōlēkobrōtos) — v.23: “Eaten by worms” — the word σκωληκόβρωτος (skōlēkobrōtos) occurs only here in the New Testament. Being eaten by worms was the stereotypical death of tyrants in ancient literature. The historian Josephus describes Herod’s death as involving severe intestinal pain over five days. The Greek historian Herodotus attributes a similar death to the Persian king Pheretime. 2 Maccabees 9:9 describes the hated Antiochus IV Epiphanes as dying with worms swarming from his body. The literary pattern is clear: kings who claim divine status are destroyed from within, devoured by the lowest creatures. The body that received divine worship becomes food for worms. The irony is absolute.
v.24: “But the word of the Lord continued to grow and to be multiplied.” This is one of Luke’s summary statements, and its placement is devastating. Herod is dead; the word grows. The king who killed James, imprisoned Peter, and accepted divine worship is eaten by worms, and the message he tried to suppress expands. Luke juxtaposes the two outcomes without comment: the fate of the persecutor and the fate of the word. The word wins. It always wins.
v.25: Barnabas and Saul return from Jerusalem after delivering the famine relief (11:30) and bring John Mark with them. This verse is the bridge to the next section of Acts: the first missionary journey will begin in chapter 13 with Barnabas, Saul, and John Mark departing from Antioch. The chapter that began with Herod’s aggression ends with the missionaries assembling. The persecutor is in his grave; the preachers are on the move.
General Notes on the Chapter
Acts 12 is structured as a contest between royal power and divine power, and the outcome is never in doubt. Herod kills James, imprisons Peter, and accepts divine worship. God frees Peter, strikes Herod dead, and grows the word. The pattern is simple and devastating: human power, no matter how absolute, cannot defeat the purposes of God. Herod has the sword, the prison, the soldiers, the political authority, and the adoring crowd. God has an angel, a prayer meeting, and a sleepy fisherman. God wins.
The death of James (v.2) is one of the most theologically difficult moments in Acts, precisely because of its contrast with Peter’s rescue. James is killed; Peter is freed. Both are apostles. Both are faithful. Both are in the same persecution. Why does God rescue one and not the other? Luke offers no explanation. He does not say James had less faith, or that the church prayed less for James, or that James’s death served some greater purpose. He simply narrates both events and lets them stand side by side. The juxtaposition is Luke’s way of saying: God’s providence is real, but it is not predictable. Faithfulness to Christ does not guarantee physical safety. The church prays, and sometimes the answer is rescue; sometimes the answer is martyrdom. Both are within God’s will, and neither can be controlled by human effort. This is hard theology, but Luke does not flinch from it.
The Rhoda scene (vv.13–16) is one of the few genuinely funny passages in the New Testament, and Luke includes it because it is both theologically profound and humanly recognizable. The church prays fervently for Peter’s release, and when God answers, they refuse to believe it. The servant girl who recognizes the miracle is dismissed as crazy. The apostle freed by an angel is locked out by a wooden gate. The scene demonstrates that God answers prayer even when the pray-ers have insufficient faith to recognize the answer. Grace does not require adequate faith to be effective. God’s power is not limited by the expectations of those who pray. The community’s faith is real (they are praying), imperfect (they do not believe the answer), and sufficient (Peter is at the door). God works through all of it.
The transition from Peter to James the brother of Jesus (v.17) is one of the most significant leadership transitions in early Christianity. Peter tells the community to report to James and then leaves Jerusalem. From this point forward, James will lead the Jerusalem church (cf. 15:13–21, 21:18). Peter will reappear at the Jerusalem Council but as a participant, not the presiding authority. The shift reflects a broader transition in Acts: the first half (chapters 1–12) is Peter’s story, centered in Jerusalem; the second half (chapters 13–28) is Paul’s story, centered in the Gentile world. Chapter 12 is the hinge. Peter’s departure from Jerusalem is the narrative baton pass to Paul, whose missionary journeys begin in the very next chapter.
The death of Herod (vv.20–23) is corroborated in remarkable detail by Josephus, making it one of the best-attested events in Acts from external sources. Both Luke and Josephus describe the same sequence: a public appearance in royal splendor, divine acclamation by the crowd, and immediate fatal illness. The agreement is not exact in every detail (Josephus mentions an owl omen; Luke mentions worms), but the convergence is strong enough to establish the historical core. Luke’s theological interpretation — that Herod was struck down for accepting divine glory — adds a layer that Josephus does not, but the basic event is shared. Acts is narrating real history, interpreted through the lens of faith.
The chapter’s final verse (v.25) quietly assembles the cast for the next act. Barnabas and Saul return from Jerusalem with John Mark. These three will set out from Antioch in chapter 13 on the first missionary journey. The persecuting king is dead. The missionaries are gathering. The word of the Lord continues to grow and to be multiplied. The stage is set for the gospel’s journey to the end of the earth.