840. Responsibility of Jailers

Acts 16:27
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Acts 16:27. He drew out his sword, and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled.
According to the Roman law, if a prisoner escaped, the jailer who had him in charge was compelled to suffer the penalty which was to have been inflicted on the prisoner. This accounts for the despair of the jailer in this case. He preferred death by his own hands to the death by torture, which probably awaited some of the condemned prisoners whom he supposed to have escaped.