Acts 12:18-19

Understandably there was "no small disturbance" (a litotes, cf. Acts 14:28; Acts 15:2; Acts 17:4; Acts 17:12; Acts 19:23-24) when the authorities found Peter’s cell empty. Herod evidently concluded that the guards had cooperated with Peter’s escape or at least had been negligent. Roman guards who allowed their prisoners to escape suffered the punishment of those prisoners. [Note: Barclay, p. 101; Witherington, p. 389, footnote 107.] These guards died. Herod then left Judea (the old Jewish name for the area around Jerusalem) and returned to Caesarea, the nominal capital of the Roman province of Judea. One wonders if Peter’s escape played a role in Herod’s decision to leave the center of Jewish life and so save face. Even a Roman authority could not prevent the church from growing.