How to read this page

An Intertextuality Pair — one connection between two passages, shown as linked verse cards: the Later text and the Earlier text it quotes, alludes to or echoes. The Significance essay explains why the link matters and where it points in Christ.

Reference Type— how explicit the link is: Quotation, Allusion, or Echo
Connection Method(s)— how it carries meaning: e.g. Typology, Promise-Fulfillment, Analogy, Longitudinal Theme
Found via— where the connection was identified, e.g. the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge or an Anchor-Text Network

Graph View — tap the constellation icon in the top bar to see this page's connections as a web of light: gold points are passages, and the coloured threads are the connection types. Click any type in the graph's own legend to filter it in or out, and use the expand control for the full-screen night sky.

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Intertextuality Pair

Acts 12:3 → Genesis 4:2

Echo

Later text

Acts 12:3BSB

And seeing that this pleased the Jews, Herod proceeded to seize Peter during the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

Earlier text

Genesis 4:2BSB

Later she gave birth to Cain's brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, while Cain was a tiller of the soil.

+ 1 more earlier text

Earlier text

Exodus 14-15BSB

Open the passage to read it in full.

Significance

"Herod proceeded to seize Peter during the Feast of Unleavened Bread" (Acts 12:3). The construction "proceeded to" renders a Hebraic idiom of continuation common in the Greek Old Testament — the same pattern of "again" that begins with Cain and Abel, when Eve "gave birth to Cain's brother Abel" (Genesis 4:2). Luke's Scripture-shaped Greek quietly frames the persecution within the biblical story, and the timing is pointed: Herod's murderous move comes at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at Passover (Acts 12:4), the season of Israel's deliverance — the exodus backdrop (cf. Exodus 14-15) against which God will again rescue His servant. The connection is chiefly stylistic, but Luke's placement invites the reader to see Peter's deliverance from prison as a Passover redemption in miniature: God again bringing His people out with a mighty hand while a hostile king is brought low.

Found via: G.K. Beale and D.A. Carson, Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament
Reference Type: Echo
Connection Method(s): None