Acts 23:3-5

In times like these it is best to remain silent and pray for our leaders and all those who govern. With the guidance of the Holy Spirit, God’s will can be accomplished on earth as it is in heaven.

The peace of God i is beyond our human capacity of understanding…I am oh so very thankful for it!!!!

Paul proclaims that God’s justice against the high priest will match his disregard for the law. Paul accuses Ananias of failing to uphold the law by presuming Paul’s guilt and punishing him before Paul could make his case. It is possible Paul had never seen Ananias and was not aware he was the high priest. It is also possible that Paul was speaking sarcastically.  Or He did not recognize Ananias because Ananias was not acting the way the high priest was supposed to act. Faithlife Bible.

Whitewash is a thin paint used to make something dirty look clean. Ananias deserved this rebuke. The fact that Ananias had someone else “do his dirty work” did not absolve him from the ordering of the act.

Note that Paul did not defend his behavior, but rather repented of it. There are several possible reasons why Paul did not know Ananias was the high priest. It could be that Paul’s eyesight was poor, and he could not see Ananias clearly. Or perhaps this was not a normal assembly of the Sanhedrin, and the high priest was not wearing his normal robes or sitting in his usual place. NKJ Bible.

Acts 23:3-5

 3 Then Paul said to him, “God will strike you, you whitewashed wall! For you sit to judge me according to the law, and do you command me to be struck contrary to the law?”

4 And those who stood by said, “Do you revile God’s high priest?”

5 Then Paul said, “I did not know, brethren, that he was the high priest; for it is written, ‘You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people.’ ”

Exodus 22:28 | “You shall not revile God, nor curse a ruler of your people.

Commentary:

3, 4. God shall smite thee—as indeed He did; for he was killed by an assassin during the Jewish war [Josephus, Wars of the Jews, 2.17.9].

thou whited wall—that is, hypocrite (Mt 23:27). This epithet, however correctly describing the man, must not be defended as addressed to a judge, though the remonstrance which follows—“for sittest thou,” &c.—ought to have put him to shame.

5. I wist not … that he was the high priest—All sorts of explanations of this have been given. The high priesthood was in a state of great confusion and constant change at this time (as appears from Josephus), and the apostle’s long absence from Jerusalem, and perhaps the manner in which he was habited or the seat he occupied, with other circumstances to us unknown, may account for such a speech. But if he was thrown off his guard by an insult which touched him to the quick, “what can surpass the grace with which he recovered his self-possession, and the frankness with which he acknowledged his error? If his conduct in yielding to the momentary impulse was not that of Christ Himself under a similar provocation (Jn 18:22, 23), certainly the manner in which he atoned for his fault was Christ-like” [Hacket].