Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 22:30

"But on the morrow, desiring to know the certainty wherefore he was accused of the Jews, he loosed him, and commanded the chief priests and all the council to come together, and brought Paul down and set him before them." — Acts 22:30 (ASV)

Because he would have known the certainty . . .—Better, wishing to know the certain fact, namely, why he was accused. Failing to get the information by the process of torturing the prisoner, the chief captain now resorts to the other alternative of getting a formal declaration from the Sanhedrin, as the chief representative body of the Jews. Up to that point, it will be remembered, they had taken no official action in the proceedings, and the chief captain had heard only the clamor of the crowd.