Paul and Silas imprisoned and freed; the jailer's conversion

The crowd joins in the attack, the magistrates order Paul and Silas to be stripped and beaten with rods, and after they have been severely flogged they are thrown into prison with instructions to guard them carefully.

Beating with rods was a Roman punishment administered by the lictors who attended magistrates, and it was distinct from the Jewish thirty-nine lashes. Paul says elsewhere that he received it three times.

The jailer puts them in the inner cell and fastens their feet in the stocks, a wooden frame with holes that could be set wide apart to force the legs into a painful position.

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.

Suddenly there is such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison are shaken. All the prison doors fly open, and everyone's chains come loose. Macedonia sits on an active fault system and earthquakes there are common; the timing is what is being reported.

The jailer wakes up, sees the doors open, draws his sword and is about to kill himself because he assumes the prisoners have escaped. That reaction is not despair but arithmetic. A guard who lost his prisoners faced their sentence, and taking his own life first was the recognised way of avoiding execution and preserving his family's position.

Do not harm yourself! We are all here! Paul shouts.

The jailer calls for lights, rushes in and falls trembling before them, then brings them out and asks the question: sirs, what must I do to be saved?

Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.

At that hour of the night he takes them and washes their wounds, and immediately he and all his household are baptised. Then he brings them into his house and sets a meal before them, and the whole family is filled with joy.

Wounds washed and a meal served in the middle of the night, by the man who had put them in the stocks a few hours earlier.

The following morning the magistrates send word to release them quietly, and Paul refuses to go. They beat us publicly without a trial, even though we are Roman citizens, and threw us into prison. And now do they want to get rid of us quietly? No! Let them come themselves and escort us out.

Beating an untried citizen was a serious offence, and the magistrates come in person and ask them to leave the city.

Philippi is the church that later sends money to Paul repeatedly, and the letter he writes to them from prison thanks them for it more warmly than he thanks anyone for anything.

The jailer is the second head of a household in that city recorded believing, after Lydia. Between them they represent about as wide a social range as the city contained: an independent businesswoman trading in luxury goods, and a public servant who probably began as a soldier.