The council had given an order that set their word against God's. Peter and John answer with a question that puts the choice back on the judges: would God call it right to obey you rather than Him? They did not need to argue the point; the council professed to serve God, so the answer was obvious. Gill says magistrates are to be obeyed, "but not more than God, or in things that are contrary to his nature, will, law, honour, and glory." Then the apostles state their own decision: "we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard" (Acts 4:20).

The council gave no answer to the question. "When they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding nothing how they might punish them, because of the people" (Acts 4:21). Peter and John went to their own company, reported everything, and the believers prayed for boldness (Acts 4:23-29). Later, when the council arrested the apostles again, Peter and the other apostles turned this question into a plain statement: "We ought to obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29).

The KJV word "hearken" means to listen in the sense of obey. The Sanhedrin was the highest Jewish court, and its members were the religious authorities of the nation (Acts 4:5-6). For two fishermen, called "unlearned and ignorant men" (Acts 4:13), to tell this court to judge its own command was remarkable.

Barnes calls this "one of the first and most bold appeals on record in favor of the right of private judgment and the liberty of conscience." Note that the KJV prints this as a statement ending in a period; it is an indirect question that the hearers must answer for themselves.

This question settles where final authority lies. Human authorities are real, but they are not God. When a human command directly contradicts what God has commanded, God's word comes first. Peter and John had been told by Jesus to be His witnesses (Acts 1:8), and they could not unsay what they had seen and heard (Acts 4:20).

Matthew Henry (Concise) writes, "Those who know how to put a just value upon Christ's promises, know how to put just contempt upon the world's threatenings." The apostles' courage did not come from stubbornness but from confidence in God. Their next step was not to plan a protest but to pray, and God answered by filling them with the Holy Ghost (Acts 4:24-31).