Bible Strands
Acts 12:4
He arrested him and put him in prison, handing him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring him out to the people after the Passover.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The narrator describes Herod’s immediate actions after seizing Peter during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, noting the specific guard arrangement and the king’s plan to display Peter publicly after the Passover.
The words — παραδοὺς (paradous) means having delivered or handed over, and φυλακὴν (phulakēn) denotes the specific place of confinement where Peter was held.
The thread — The pattern of arrest, political intent, and divine oversight runs through Luke 21:12, Luke 22:33, and Proverbs 19:21.
Why it lands — The verse records the factual escalation of persecution and Herod’s calculated timeline without commentary, requiring the reader to note the exact conditions of the confinement before any theological inference.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Greek words
King James Version
And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.
Cross-references
- Proverbs 19:21 Many plans are in a man’s heart, but the purpose of the LORD will prevail.
- Luke 22:33 “Lord,” said Peter, “I am ready to go with You even to prison and to death.”
- Luke 21:12 But before all this, they will seize you and persecute you. On account of My name they will deliver you to the synagogues and prisons, and they will bring you before kings and governors.
- John 13:36 “Lord, where are You going?” Simon Peter asked. Jesus answered, “Where I am going, you cannot follow Me now, but you will follow later.”
- Acts 4:28 They carried out what Your hand and will had decided beforehand would happen.
- Esther 3:6 And when he learned the identity of Mordecai’s people, he scorned the notion of laying hands on Mordecai alone. Instead, he sought to destroy all of Mordecai’s people, the Jews, throughout the kingdom of Xerxes.
- Esther 3:13 And the letters were sent by couriers to each of the royal provinces with the order to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the Jews—young and old, women and children—and to plunder their possessions on a single day, the thirteenth day of Adar, the twelfth month.
- Proverbs 27:1 Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.
- Matthew 24:9 Then they will deliver you over to be persecuted and killed, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name.
- Matthew 26:5 “But not during the feast,” they said, “or there may be a riot among the people.”