{3} Then said Paul unto him, God shall smite thee, thou {b} whited wall: for sittest thou to judge me after the law, and commandest me to be smitten {c} contrary to the law?

(3) It is lawful for us to complain of injuries, and to summon the wicked to the judgment seat of God, but yet we must do it without hatred, and with a quiet and peaceable mind.

(b) This is a vehement and severe speech, but yet not reproachful: for the godly may speak severely, and yet be void of the bitter affection of a severe and angry mind.

(c) For the Law commands the judge to hear the person that is accused patiently, and to pronounce the sentence judiciously.

People's New Testament

23:3 God shall smite thee, etc. These words, spoken by the prisoner, indignant at the mockery of justice, were rather a prediction than an imprecation. I have just stated that this violent man came to an untimely death. The insult to Paul reminds us of a similar one to his Master before the same body (Joh 18:22).

Thou white wall. By whited wall Paul means a hypocrite. See PNT Mt 23:27.

Wesley's Notes

23:3 Then said Paul - Being carried away by a sudden and prophetic impulse. God is about to smite thee, thou whited wall - Fair without; full of dirt and rubbish within. And he might well be so termed, not only as he committed this outrage, while gravely sitting on the tribunal of justice but also as, at the same time that he stood high in the esteem of the citizens, he cruelly defrauded the priests of their legal subsistence, so that some of them even perished for want. And God did remarkably smite him; for about five years after this, his house being reduced to ashes, in a tumult begun by his own son, he was besieged in the royal palace; where having hid himself in an old aqueduct, he was dragged out and miserably slain.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

3, 4. God shall smite thee-as indeed He did; for he was killed by an assassin during the Jewish war [Josephus, Wars of the Jews, 2.17.9].

thou whited wall-that is, hypocrite (Mt 23:27). This epithet, however correctly describing the man, must not be defended as addressed to a judge, though the remonstrance which follows-"for sittest thou," &c.-ought to have put him to shame.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

23:1-5 See here the character of an honest man. He sets God before him, and lives as in his sight. He makes conscience of what he says and does, and, according to the best of his knowledge, he keeps from whatever is evil, and cleaves to what is good. He is conscientious in all his words and conduct. Those who thus live before God, may, like Paul, have confidence both toward God and man. Though the answer of Paul contained a just rebuke and prediction, he seems to have been too angry at the treatment he received in uttering them. Great men may be told of their faults, and public complaints may be made in a proper manner; but the law of God requires respect for those in authority.