"The prediction of St. Paul, v. 3, 'God shall smite thee, thou whited wall,' was, according to Josephus, fulfilled in a short time. For when, in the government of Florus, his son Eleazar set himself at the head of a party of mutineers, who, having made themselves masters of the temple, would permit no sacrifices to be offered for the emperor; and being joined by a company of assassins, compelled persons of the best quality to fly for their safety and hide themselves in sinks and vaults;—Ananias and his brother Hezekias, were both drawn out of one of these places, and murdered, (Jos. de Bell. lib. ii. c. 17, 18,) though Dr. Lightfoot will have it that he perished at the siege of Jerusalem!" (Whitby's Annot.) [Williams on Pearson.]
During that night, the soul of Paul was comforted by a heavenly
vision, in which the Lord exhorted him to maintain the
same high spirit,—assuring him that as he had testified of him
in Jerusalem, even so he should bear witness in Rome. His
dangers in Jerusalem, however, were not yet over. The furious
Jews, now cut off from all possibility of doing any violence to
Paul, under the sanction of legal forms, determined to set all moderation
aside, and forty of the most desperate bound themselves
by a solemn oath, neither to eat nor drink, till they had slain
Paul. In the arrangement of the mode in which their abominable
vow should be performed, it was settled between them and
the high-priest, that a request should be sent to the tribune to
bring down Paul before the council once more, as if for the
sake of putting some additional inquiries to him for their final
and perfect satisfaction; and then, that these desperadoes should
station themselves, where they could make a rush upon Paul, just
as he was entering the council-hall, and kill him before the guard
could bestir themselves in his defense, or seize the murderers;
and even if some of them should be caught and punished, it
never need be known, that the high priest was accessory to the
assassination. But while they were arranging this hopeful piece
of wickedness, they did not manage it so snugly as was necessary
for the success of the plot; for it somehow or other got to the
ears of Paul's nephew,—a young man no where else mentioned in
the New Testament, and of whose character and situation, nothing
whatever is known. He, hearing of the plot, came instantly
to his uncle, who sent him to communicate the tidings to the
tribune. Lysias, on receiving this account of the utterly desperate
character of the opposition to Paul, determined not to risk his
prisoner's life any longer in Jerusalem, even when guarded by the
powerful defenses of castle Antonia. He dismissed the young
man with the strongest injunctions, to observe the most profound
secrecy, as to the fact of his having made this communication to
him; and immediately made preparations to send off Paul, that
