26:30 So the king got up, and with him the governor and Bernice and those sitting with them, 26:31 and as they were leaving they said to one another, 5 “This man is not doing anything deserving 6 death or imprisonment.” 26:32 Agrippa 7 said to Festus, 8 “This man could have been released 9 if he had not appealed to Caesar.” 10
1 sn See the note on King Agrippa in 25:13.
2 tn Or “In a short time you will make me a Christian.” On the difficulty of the precise nuances of Agrippa’s reply in this passage, see BDAG 791 s.v. πείθω 1.b. The idiom is like 1 Kgs 21:7 LXX. The point is that Paul was trying to persuade Agrippa to accept his message. If Agrippa had let Paul persuade him, he would have converted to Christianity.
3 tn BDAG 703 s.v. ὀλίγος 2.b.β has “καὶ ἐν ὀλ. καὶ ἐν μεγάλῳ whether in a short or a long time vs. 29 (cf. B-D-F §195; GWhitaker, The Words of Agrippa to St. Paul: JTS 15, 1914, 82f; AFridrichsen, SymbOsl 14, ’35, 50; Field, Notes 141-43; s. Rob. 653).”
4 sn Except for these chains. The chains represented Paul’s unjust suffering for the sake of the message. His point was, in effect, “I do not care how long it takes. I only hope you and everyone else hearing this would become believers in Christ, but without my unjust suffering.”
5 tn Grk “they spoke to one another saying.” The participle λέγοντες (legontes) is redundant in English and has not been translated.
6 tn BDAG 93 s.v. ἄξιος 1.b has “θανάτου ἢ δεσμῶν ἄ. nothing deserving death or imprisonment 23:29; 26:31.”
7 sn See the note on King Agrippa in 25:13.
8 sn See the note on Porcius Festus in 24:27.
9 tn Or “set free.”
10 tn Or “to the emperor” (“Caesar” is a title for the Roman emperor).