Acts 12:17

Brought him out. When he had been released from prison and had come to himself, he had exclaimed, “The Lord hath sent his angel” (v. 11). Now he testified that it was the Lord who had delivered him.

Go shew. Gr. apaggello, “to carry tidings,” “to bring word,” “to declare.”

James. This is undoubtedly the James who presided over the council at Jerusalem concerning circumcision, and who gave his decision on that question (ch. 15:13). Thus he was in some sense the presiding elder of the church at Jerusalem, and it was natural for Peter to wish him to have news immediately of his deliverance.

This James may have been the son of Alphaeus or the James who was a brother of the Lord. Jesus’ brothers did not believe in Him until the close of His life on earth, long after the Twelve had been chosen. To the James who was one of the pillars of the church in Jerusalem, after the death of James the son of Zebedee, Paul gives the express title “the Lord’s brother” (Gal. 1:19; cf. ch. 2:9). This is probably the James to whom Peter here refers. Eusebius (Ecclesiastical History ii. 23; Loeb ed., vol. 1, p. 171) calls him bishop of Jerusalem, and quotes Hegesippus’ Memoirs (A.D. 180) concerning James, which, though not necessarily exact, probably preserve some elements of truth: “‘He was called the “Just” by all men from the Lord’s time to ours, since many are called James, but he was holy from his mother’s womb. He drank no wine or strong drink, nor did he eat flesh; no razor went upon his head; he did not anoint himself with oil, and he did not go to the baths. He alone was allowed to enter into the sanctuary, for he did not wear wool but linen, and he used to enter alone into the temple and be found kneeling and praying for forgiveness for the people, so that his knees grew hard like a camel’s because of his constant worship of God, kneeling and asking forgiveness for the people.’” According to tradition, he was carried up to a pinnacle of the Temple, and when he refused to disown Christ, and insisted on holding to his belief in Him, he was thrown down, and stoned, and beaten to death by the club of a fuller (see vol. V, p. 71). According to Josephus (Antiquities xx. 9.1) he was stoned to death.