16:26
Then there was a violent earthquake. This was possible just a very localised event that seemed like an earthquake, or a more general earthquake that had the effect of shaking the foundations of the prison. All the prison doors flew open and everyone’s chains fell off. This shows that even though the earthquake itself may possible have been explicable as a natural event, the loosing of the chains is much harder to explain, unless one takes the view that it was direct intervention by God.
16:27,28
While this was good news for the prisoners, it was not so for the guard. He would be in enormous trouble for letting the prisoners get free. The sentence for such a failing could quite easily be death (see Acts 12:19). Paul reassures him that they were all still there. It is not clear why the other prisoners had not just scarpered. Maybe they were in shock as well.
16:29,30
The jailer then called for lights, presumably some parts had collapsed. He fell before Paul and Silas, but unlike in an earlier incident, he was not worshipping them as such, but could see that they had access to some superior knowledge or power. “What must I do to be saved?” The fact that Paul and Silas had been worshipping God, and the reason for their imprisonment in the first place meant the jailer would know why they were there. The immediate events had demonstrated beyond doubt that there was something in it!
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