“scuppered by a little boy”

Acts 23:16, 19-21

Now the son of Paul's sister heard of their ambush, so he went and entered the barracks and told Paul. . . . The tribune took [Paul’s nephew] by the hand, and going aside asked him privately, “What is it that you have to tell me?” And he said, “The Jews have agreed to ask you to bring Paul down to the council tomorrow, as though they were going to inquire somewhat more closely about him. But do not be persuaded by them, for more than forty of their men are lying in ambush for him, who have bound themselves by an oath neither to eat nor drink till they have killed him. And now they are ready, waiting for your consent.”

N. T. Wright, Acts for Everyone (Part Two)

[G]ranted that throughout history people have made plots against other people, and have often carried them out all too successfully, isn’t it interesting that on this occasion the plot which might so easily have done away with Paul once and for all was scuppered by a little boy? (172)

What we all want to know at this point is, of course, what did they all do next, once the plan was thwarted? . . . I imagine that few of them, if any starved. I imagine the high priest found a legal loophole to absolve them from their silly vow. Or maybe, since they were legal experts, they invented one themselves. It wouldn’t be the first or the last time. And—since part of the point of all this is that they were the ultra-orthodox legal experts, concerned above all for the honor of God and his law—there would be a nice irony in imagining them cautiously explaining to their own consciences how even that most solemn oath hadn’t quite meant what it said (173).