Acts 5:40

And to him they agreed: and when they had called the apostles unto them, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.

They beat ... There was nothing mild about such a punishment. They were brutally beaten with "forty stripes save one, a penalty inflicted upon Paul five times (2 Corinthians 11:24)."[46] The excuse for such punishment was the apostles' disobedience of the Sanhedrin's injunction against teaching in the name of Jesus, an injunction they issued once more in connection with the punishment.

The fierce Sadducees would have resorted to murder, except for the danger of alienating the Pharisees; and thus it may not be supposed that they were impressed with Gamaliel's suggestion that they might be fighting against God. Gamaliel's speech, under the circumstances, "was little less than a guarded admission of the truth";[47] but the concern of the Sadducees did not relate to what was true, but to what was popular, or expedient.

[46] J. R. Dummelow, op. cit., p. 825.

[47] John William Russell, op. cit. p. 295.