Acts 5:7

And it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in. And Peter answered unto her, Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much. And she said, Yea, for so much.

However the divine judgment must have shocked and surprised Peter, in the case of Ananias, he could not have been unaware of the judgment that would befall Sapphira in case she was guilty. What a dreadful fear must have fallen upon the assembly as Sapphira made her entry. "Can you imagine the silence as her examination proceeded? Her unhesitating reply proved they had conspired together."[18]

Sold the land ... This is the first intimation that identifies the property sold as "land." As Ramsey observed:

The whole circumstances are not explained at the outset. The reader learns them piecemeal, as the spectators learned them. Such an account is clearly marked as resting on eyewitness. We have a real occurrence remembered and described as it happened.[19]

[18] W. R. Walker, Studies in Acts (Joplin, Missouri: College Press, n.d.), p. 39.

[19] Sir William Ramsay, op. cit., p. 33.