(9) Willing to do the Jews a pleasure.--See Note on Acts 24:27. The invitation was in itself plausible enough. It practically admitted that there was no evidence on the last head of the accusation of which he, as procurator, need take cognizance. It offered the prisoner a trial before his own national tribunal, with the presence of the procurator as a check upon violence and injustice. It is manifest from St. Paul's answer that this was practically what Festus meant. The proposed trial would, he says, not be before Caesar's judgment seat, and he, for his part, preferred the secular to the ecclesiastical tribunal.

Verse 9. - 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 case 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.

25:1-12 See how restless malice is. Persecutors deem it a peculiar favour to have their malice gratified. Preaching Christ, the end of the law, was no offence against the law. In suffering times the prudence of the Lord's people is tried, as well as their patience; they need wisdom. It becomes those who are innocent, to insist upon their innocence. Paul was willing to abide by the rules of the law, and to let that take its course. If he deserved death, he would accept the punishment. But if none of the things whereof they accused him were true, no man could deliver him unto them, with justice. Paul is neither released nor condemned. It is an instance of the slow steps which Providence takes; by which we are often made ashamed, both of our hopes and of our fears, and are kept waiting on God.But Festus, willing to do the Jews a pleasure,.... As did his predecessor Felix, Acts 24:27 he being just entered upon his new government, and having met with some caresses and civilities from the Jews at Jerusalem, by whom he had been much pressed and urged about the affair of the apostle:

answered Paul, and said, wilt thou go up to Jerusalem, and there be judged of these things before me? meaning by the Jewish sanhedrim, he Festus being present: this was what the Jews had requested of him when he was at Jerusalem, that he would send for Paul thither, and there let him be judged, and which request he had denied; but having been solicited and importuned by the Jews, perhaps as, they came down together, he was inclined to gratify them, and to admit of it that he should be tried at Jerusalem, before the sanhedrim, he being present; and yet he was unwilling to do this without the prisoner's consent, he being a freeman of a Roman city; fearing he should be charged with delivering up a Roman into the hands of the Jews, which might be resented by the emperor and the Roman senate, should it come to their knowledge.