Acts 25:9 - Expostion

Desiring to gain favor with the Jews for willing to do the Jews a pleasure, A.V. To gain favor , etc. (see above, Acts 24:27 , note). It was not unnatural that Festus, ignorant as he still was of Jewish malice and bigotry and violence, in the ease of Paul, and anxious to conciliate a people so difficult to govern as the Jews had showed themselves to be, should make the proposal. In doing so he still insisted that the trial should be before him. Before me ; ἐπ ἐμοῦ , as Acts 23:30 and Acts 26:2 ; ἐπὶ σοῦ "before thee," viz. King Agrippa in the last case, and Felix in the former. The expression is somewhat ambiguous, and may merely mean that Festus would be present in the court to ensure fair play, while the Sanhedrim judged Paul according to their Law, and so Paul seems, by his answer, to have understood it.