Acts 12:23 Explained in Context

Selected verse

Verse 23. And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory: and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost.

King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions

Quick Meaning

Attributes Herod's fatal judgment to accepting glory owed to God.

Read It With

Acts 12:20–12:23

Read Acts 12:23 with 12:20–12:23. In isolation, this contribution—attributes Herod's fatal judgment to accepting glory owed to God—can be mistaken for the scene's whole claim, detached from its speaker or narrator, or separated from its outcome. The complete unit establishes: During a dispute with Tyre and Sidon, Herod delivers an address, the crowd calls his voice divine, and an angel strikes him because he does not give God glory.

Why This Verse Appears Here

Attributes Herod's fatal judgment to accepting glory owed to God. This precise contribution belongs inside “Herod receives flattery and dies” because During a dispute with Tyre and Sidon, Herod delivers an address, the crowd calls his voice divine, and an angel strikes him because he does not give God glory.

Follow the Context

During a dispute with Tyre and Sidon, Herod delivers an address, the crowd calls his voice divine, and an angel strikes him because he does not give God glory.
The unit distinguishes narrated event, participant speech, the narrator's framing, material uncertainty, and the ethical boundary: The judgment does not authorize assassination, gloating at illness, or declaring every ruler's sickness a divine verdict.

What This Verse Is Not Saying

This verse does not detach its specific contribution—attributes Herod's fatal judgment to accepting glory owed to God—from Acts 12:20–12:23 or negate the unit's explicit boundary: The judgment does not authorize assassination, gloating at illness, or declaring every ruler's sickness a divine verdict.

What Remains True

Acts 12:23's particular contribution—attributes Herod's fatal judgment to accepting glory owed to God—shows that faithful witness remains accountable to the verse's speaker, narrated setting, affected people, and the complete movement of Acts 12:20–12:23.

How It Can Shape Life

Practice Acts 12:23's particular contribution—attributes Herod's fatal judgment to accepting glory owed to God—through this passage-controlled response: Refuse flattery that treats rulers as divine, and do not claim authority to diagnose illness or death as God's direct judgment.

Teach It Back

Explain Acts 12:23's precise role in Acts 12:20–12:23. Distinguish narrator and speaker, include the first Jewish, Gentile, household, disabled, enslaved, imprisoned, or Roman horizon as relevant, disclose the material uncertainty, and name one conclusion this verse does not authorize.

Explain the verse in context

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Continue in Context

The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.

Read Acts 12:20–12:23 — Herod receives flattery and dies

Sources used for this Verse Lens

How certain is this explanation? probable

These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.

Biblical text

King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006

eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society

USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.

Supports: Exact displayed KJV wording, order, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and unit coverage.

Exact location: Acts 12:20–12:23, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived repository corpus

Open source ↗

Greek textual evidence

The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition

Michael W. Holmes, editor; Society of Biblical Literature and Logos

Society of Biblical Literature and Logos Bible Software, 2010

Supports: Greek wording and punctuation control, without pretending one edition is a complete apparatus.

Exact location: SBLGNT official text, Acts 12:20-12:23

Open the Acts Greek text file ↗

Lexical and grammatical evidence

STEP Bible Data

Tyndale House Cambridge

Tyndale House Cambridge, repository snapshot verified 2026

Supports: Morphology and lexical cross-check for words explicitly discussed in this unit.

Exact location: STEP Bible Data, TAGNT rows for Acts 12:20-12:23

Open source ↗

open translation and translator notes

NET Bible First Edition Notes: Acts

Biblical Studies Press

Biblical Studies Press, 2006

Supports: Verse-attached textual, translation, language, geography, chronology, and historical notes actually printed for the unit.

Exact location: NET Bible First Edition Acts PDF, printed pp. 2104-2205, exact tn/tc/sn entries attached to 12:20–12:23

Open source ↗

open university bible study course

Acts of the Apostles Course and Study Guides

Yale Divinity School faculty

Yale Bible Study, 2019

Supports: Introductory critical orientation to the unit's place in Luke-Acts, with contested judgments retained as interpretations.

Exact location: Yale Bible Study Acts course, course unit 'Gentiles Join the Movement,' Acts 9-12 study guide

Open source ↗

open confessional commentary

The Acts of the Apostles

Alan J. Thompson

The Gospel Coalition, 2023

Supports: One complete confessional commentary reading, independently checked against the text and critical controls.

Exact location: Thompson, online Acts commentary, heading and paragraphs explicitly covering Acts 12:20–12:23

Open source ↗

Open the complete thought-unit research record