By rising to his feet Agrippa signaled the end of the hearing. Everyone else rose out of respect for him. Luke implied that everyone present concurred that Paul was completely innocent. This had previously been the verdict of the Pharisees (23:9), Claudius Lysias (23:29), and Festus (25:25). Now Agrippa, a Roman ruler with Jewish blood in his veins who was sympathetic to the Jews, voiced the same opinion (v. 32). In Agrippa's opinion Paul did not even need to be in prison, much less die for what he had done.
"The effect of the scene as a whole is to emphasize the uprightness of Roman legal proceedings over against the partiality and injustice of the Jews, and to show that, when measured by Roman law, Paul's behavior appeared to be free from any guilt; mad he might appear to be, but not a criminal. There is tremendous emphasis on the climax: This man could have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar.'"938
"It may finally be asked whether Luke was justified in devoting so much of his limited space to Paul's examinations before the various tribunals of Rome. Paul's case, it should be remembered, was a test case. If he was finally acquitted, and the Pastoral Epistles are solid evidence that he was, Luke's final purpose is clear."939
