Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 26:32

"And Agrippa said unto Festus, This man might have been set at liberty, if he had not appealed unto Caesar." — Acts 26:32 (ASV)

This man might have been set at liberty . . .—The decision Agrippa reached showed the wisdom of the course St. Paul had taken. The matter could not be hushed up or dismissed. The authorities could not now free themselves from responsibility for the prisoner's safe custody and, by releasing him, expose his life to the Jews' conspiracies; and thus the Apostle at last gained that safe journey to the imperial city, which had been the great desire of his heart for many years.

It is interesting to note the subsequent relations between Festus and Agrippa during the former's short government, as they showed a continuation of the same entente cordiale that we have seen in this chapter. Agrippa took up residence in Jerusalem in the old palace of the Asmonean, or Maccabean, princes.

It commanded a view of the city, and, from a banquet hall he had erected, he could look down upon the Temple courts and see the priests sacrificing even as he sat eating.

The Jews considered this a profanation and built a wall that blocked up the view from both the king’s palace and the portico where the Roman soldiers used to stand guard during the festivals. Festus regarded this as an insult and ordered the wall to be pulled down. The people of Jerusalem, however, received permission to send an embassy to Rome. They secured the support of Poppæa—already half a proselyte, as was fashionable at the time among women of the higher class in Rome—and, by a strange irony of history, the Temple of Jehovah was rescued from profanation by Nero's concubine (Josephus, Antiquities 20.8.11).

Agrippa continued to display the taste for building that was the hereditary characteristic of his house. Cæsarea Philippi was enlarged and named Neronias in honour of the emperor. A vast theatre was erected at Berytus (Beyrout) and adorned with statues. The Temple was at last finished, and the 18,000 workmen who were thus thrown out of work were employed in repaving the city with marble.

The stateliness of the Temple ritual was enhanced by the permission the king gave to the Levites of the choir, despite the priests' protest, that they should wear a linen ephod. Once again, we note the irony of history. The king who thus had the glory of completing what the founder of his dynasty had begun, bringing both structure and ritual to a perfection never before attained, saw—within ten years—the capture of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple (Josephus, Antiquities 20.8.7).