Bible Verses About Claudius Lysias: A Roman military officer

But while they were attempting to kill him, word reached the commander of the Roman battalion that all Yerushalayim was in turmoil.

Immediately he took officers and soldiers and charged down upon them. As soon as they saw the commander, they quit beating Sha’ul.

Then the commander came up, arrested him and ordered him to be tied up with two chains. He asked who he was and what he had done.

Everyone in the crowd shouted something different; so, since he couldn’t find out what had happened because of the uproar, he ordered him brought to the barracks.

When Sha’ul got to the steps, he actually had to be carried by the soldiers, because the mob was so wild —

the crowd kept following and screaming, “Kill him!”

As Sha’ul was about to be brought into the barracks, he said to the commander, “Is it all right if I say something to you?” The commander said, “You know Greek!

Say, aren’t you that Egyptian who tried to start a revolution a while back, and led four thousand armed terrorists out into the desert?”

Sha’ul said, “I am a Jew from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of an important city; and I ask your permission to let me speak to the people.”

Having received permission, Sha’ul stood on the steps and motioned with his hand to the people. When they finally became still, he addressed them in Hebrew:

They were screaming, waving their clothes and throwing dust into the air;

so the commander ordered him brought into the barracks and directed that he be interrogated and whipped, in order to find out why they were yelling at him like this.

But as they were stretching him out with thongs to be flogged, Sha’ul said to the captain standing by, “Is it legal for you to whip a man who is a Roman citizen and hasn’t even had a trial?”

When the captain heard that, he went and reported it to the commander, “Do you realize what you’re doing? This man is a Roman citizen!”

The commander came and said to Sha’ul, “Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?” “Yes,” he said.

The commander replied, “I bought this citizenship for a sizeable sum of money.” “But I was born to it,” Sha’ul said.

At once the men who had been about to interrogate him drew back from him; and the commander was afraid too, because he realized that he had put this man who was a Roman citizen in chains.

However, the next day, since he wanted to know the specific charge the Judeans were bringing against him, he released him and ordered the head cohanim and the whole Sanhedrin to meet. Then he brought Sha’ul down and put him in front of them.