Act 16:22-24 | PNT | STEP | The multitude rose up together against them . Inflamed with prejudice. The magistrates . Without inquiry, influenced by the outcries of the throng. Rent off their clothes, and commanded to beat [them] . They ordered them at once to be scourged. The lictors, the executioners, were at hand. The Roman custom was to lay bare the body and to beat it with the rods borne by the lictors. Paul says, "Thrice was I beaten with rods" ( ).

Acts 16:22-24

The multitude rose up together against them. Inflamed with prejudice.

The magistrates. Without inquiry, influenced by the outcries of the throng.

Rent off their clothes, and commanded to beat [them]. They ordered them at once to be scourged. The lictors, the executioners, were at hand. The Roman custom was to lay bare the body and to beat it with the rods borne by the lictors. Paul says, "Thrice was I beaten with rods" (2Co 11:25). Laid many stripes upon them. Moses mercifully restricted the number of stripes (De 25:3); hence, Paul says: "Five times I received of the Jews forty stripes, save one" (2Co 11:24). With the Romans there was no such restriction. Thrust them into the inner prison. A damp interior cell from which all light was excluded.

The stocks. An instrument of torture as well as confinement. The feet, stretched wide apart, were thrust through holes in a wall of wood, and the prisoner was fastened there.