Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Acts 23:24

"and [he bade them] provide beasts, that they might set Paul thereon, and bring him safe unto Felix the governor." — Acts 23:24 (ASV)

Since the commander could not risk having a Roman citizen assassinated while in his custody, he took steps to transfer Paul to the jurisdiction of Felix, the governor of the province of Judea. He wanted to get Paul to Caesarea, the provincial capital (cf. comment on 10:1), as quickly as possible and before the conspirators got wind of it. So he ordered two centurions to ready two hundred infantry and seventy cavalry, together with two hundred “spearmen” (more likely, the word used here means “additional mounts and pack animals”), leaving for Caesarea at nine that evening. In addition, he ordered that “mounts” be provided for Paul—probably not only a horse for Paul but also another one for either riding or carrying his baggage, or both.

The purpose of the detachment was security and speed—the first being provided by the two hundred infantry and the second by the seventy cavalry with their two hundred extra mounts and pack animals, many of which may also have been used to carry the infantry during the night. If the garrison at Jerusalem consisted of about six hundred men and the word “spearmen” refers not to infantry but to additional mounts and pack animals, then the commander considered the plot against Paul serious enough to commit almost half the garrison at the Fortress of Antonia to escort Paul, with most of them due to return in a day or two (cf. v.32).

In saying that the commander wrote a letter “as follows” (lit., “of this type”), Luke suggests that what follows is only the general purport of the letter. He would hardly have been in a position to read the correspondence between a Roman commander and a Roman provincial governor. What he knew of the letter probably came from Paul, who himself would only have known about its contents as the governor used it in the initial questioning of his prisoner.