25:23 So the next day Agrippa 1 and Bernice came with great pomp 2 and entered the audience hall, 3 along with the senior military officers 4 and the prominent men of the city. When Festus 5 gave the order, 6 Paul was brought in.
1 sn See the note on King Agrippa in 25:13.
2 tn Or “great pageantry” (BDAG 1049 s.v. φαντασία; the term is a NT hapax legomenon).
3 tn Or “auditorium.” “Auditorium” may suggest to the modern English reader a theater where performances are held. Here it is the large hall where a king or governor would hold audiences. Paul once spoke of himself as a “spectacle” to the world (1 Cor 4:8-13).
4 tn Grk “the chiliarchs” (officers in command of a thousand soldiers). In Greek the term χιλίαρχος (ciliarco") literally described the “commander of a thousand,” but it was used as the standard translation for the Latin tribunus militum or tribunus militare, the military tribune who commanded a cohort of 600 men.
5 sn See the note on Porcius Festus in 24:27.
6 tn Grk “and Festus ordering, Paul was brought in.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was begun in the translation, and καί (kai) has not been translated. The participle κελεύσαντος (keleusanto") has been taken temporally.