Acts 12:2

12:2 He had James, the brother of John, executed with a sword. ¹ 

Acts 16:27

16:27 When the jailer woke up ²  and saw the doors of the prison standing open, ³  he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, ⁴  because he assumed ⁵  the prisoners had escaped.

[12:2]  ¹ sn The expression executed with a sword probably refers to a beheading. James was the first known apostolic martyr (Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. 2.9.1-3). On James, not the Lord’s brother, see Luke 5:10; 6:14. This death ended a short period of peace noted in Acts 9:31 after the persecution mentioned in 8:1-3.

[16:27]  ² tn L&N 23.75 has “had awakened” here. It is more in keeping with contemporary English style, however, to keep the two verbal ideas parallel in terms of tense (“when the jailer woke up and saw”) although logically the second action is subsequent to the first.

[16:27]  ³ tn The additional semantic component “standing” is supplied (“standing open”) to convey a stative nuance in English.

[16:27]  ⁴ sn Was about to kill himself. The jailer’s penalty for failing to guard the prisoners would have been death, so he contemplated saving the leaders the trouble (see Acts 12:19; 27:42).

[16:27]  ⁵ tn Or “thought.”