Biblion Bible Commentary
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Permission to speak, from the stairs
Acts 21:37-40
37 As Paul was about to be brought into the barracks, he asked the commanding officer, “May I speak to you?” He said, “Do you know Greek? · WEB
A polite question in Greek overturns the tribune's whole theory of who he has arrested, and Paul asks for the one thing a rescued man would not want.
The exchange on the stairs is four verses long and is one of the best-observed scenes in the book.
Paul, bleeding, in chains, being carried by soldiers above a crowd calling for his death, asks a question: May I speak to you? The register is courteous and slightly formal, and it is the courtesy that produces the effect.
The tribune's reaction is astonishment at the language. Do you know Greek? He has assumed his prisoner is illiterate in it, which tells us what he had assumed the prisoner was.
The assumption comes out at once: Aren't you then the Egyptian who before these days stirred up to sedition and led out into the wilderness the four thousand men of the Assassins? A revolt led by an Egyptian had been put down in Judea shortly before, and its leader had escaped. The dagger-men were the terrorist faction of the period, who killed in crowds at festivals. Faced with a mob trying to tear a man apart in the temple, the officer's first hypothesis was a wanted insurgent, and it was a reasonable one.
The correction is delivered with dignity and a touch of pride: I am a Jew from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no insignificant city. Every word of it is chosen. He is a Jew, not an Egyptian. Tarsus was a genuine center of learning, and the phrase about it is a piece of civic self-respect that a Roman officer would recognize and weigh.
What he does not mention is the thing that would have ended the conversation immediately. He is a Roman citizen, and he says nothing about it — he will hold that back until the whipping post in the next chapter. A man may be silent about an advantage and use it later, and this book records him doing exactly that twice.
Then the request, and it is astonishing. I beg you, allow me to speak to the people. He has just been dragged out of the temple and beaten by that crowd. Safety is four steps up, behind a door, with two hundred soldiers on the other side of it. He asks to turn around and address the men who were killing him.
Permission is given, and the staging is unforgettable: Paul standing on the stairs between the barracks and the mob, chained to two soldiers, beckoning with his hand. When there was a great silence, he spoke to them in the Hebrew language.
The choice of language is the last move. He has just proved his Greek to the tribune; he addresses the crowd in the tongue of the land, and the next verse records that hearing it made them quieter still. Everything about the scene is a man taking an opportunity out of a disaster.
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