Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 16:27

"And the jailor, being roused out of sleep and seeing the prison doors open, drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped." — Acts 16:27 (ASV)

He drew out his sword, and would have killed himself.—We have seen in Acts 12:19 what was to be expected by a jailer who, under any circumstances, allowed a prisoner to escape. (See also Note on Acts 27:42.) Here the man sought to anticipate his fate.

Suicide was a natural recourse under such conditions everywhere, but here there was a local predisposing influence. Philippi, after the great battle in which Brutus and Cassius had been defeated by Antonius, had been conspicuous for the number of those who had thus preferred death to the abandonment of the Republic and the loss of freedom. This act had been looked on as heroic (Plutarch, Brutus, c. 52), and was naturally enough contagious.