After his arrest Peter was put in jail represents “whom also having arrested he put in prison.” The reader has no difficulty in understanding that Herod is the one who made the arrest; but inasmuch as a parenthetical statement has intervened since the last mention of Peter by name, it seems best to make “whom” explicit, that is, Peter.

Four groups of four soldiers each is the meaning of the Greek phrase (see New English Bible, Jerusalem Bible, Dios Habla Hoy, La Sainte Bible: Nouvelle version Segond révisée, Zürcher Bibel), but it is made clear by the Revised Standard Version and New American Bible (“four squads of soldiers”). One group of four men would be on guard duty for three hours, followed by the other groups who also would be on duty for periods of three hours each. Peter was chained to two of these guards, and evidently the two others stood on duty at the gate.

In rendering four groups of four soldiers each one may say “four groups of soldiers guarded him successively. Each group contained four soldiers.” Or “… one group after another. Each….”

Herod planned translates the participle “planning,” which a Greek reader could immediately recognize as referring back to Herod, but this is not immediately clear to the English reader, so the Good News Translation has made it explicit. Moreover, in order to avoid a long and complicated sentence structure, the Good News Translation has begun a new sentence here. Luke’s literal expression “to bring him out to the people” should probably be taken in the sense of “to put him on public trial” (so Barclay; also Jerusalem Bible “to try Peter in public”). In some languages this public trial of Peter can be rendered as “bring him out of jail so the people could condemn him to death” or “cause him to be tried where everybody could listen to his being condemned to death.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Acts of the Apostles. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1972. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .