And when they had set them in the midst, they inquired, “By what power or by what name did you do this?”
7. In what power They do yet seem to have some zeal of God. For they feign that they are careful that the honor due unto God may not be given to any other. Name is taken in this place for authority. In sum, they deal as if they were most earnest defenders and maintainers of God’s glory.
The court sits the next day, not in haste like when they tried Christ, and perhaps they begin to relent; yet they cannot wait to silence the apostles. This prosecution in Jerusalem, where so many looked for redemption and found it but would not receive it, shows how that faithful city became a harlot. The gospel had both learning and power arrayed against it, yet it prevailed.
AI summary
Commenting on Acts 4:5-14
And when they had set them in the midst,.... Of the assembly, as the Ethiopic version adds; in the middle of the sanhedrim, which sat in a semicircular form; or as the Jews express it, as the half of a round corn floor, or as a half moon, and not in a perfect circle; because it was necessary that the contending parties, and the witnesses...