<p>5:9 <i>But Peter said to her: How is it you have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord?</i>- I have suggested that pride was the key motive for the sin. But Peter's comment suggests another factor. Perhaps they doubted whether Peter truly had the Spirit, and so they had decided to test this. However, it could be that here we have a case of sin being described in terms of what it really is, even though how the sin is now described would be denied by the sinner. He wanted to show her what their pride and lying really amounted to- a putting of God's Spirit to the test. The language of testing God is replete with reference to Israel's failure in this. They tested God in the wilderness (Dt. 6:16; Ps. 78:18,41,56; 106:14); and this led to their exclusion from the promised land. In essence, Ananias and Sapphira had repeated Israel's sin. Despite all the evidence both to them and to Israel in the wilderness, that God's Spirit was indeed possessed by the leaders of His people- still they wanted to test whether it really was. But of course it all depends on motive- Gideon tested the Spirit, twice; Paul went against Spirit guidance in continuing his journey to Jerusalem. The same words are also used about how he tested going into Mysia, but the Spirit didn't allow him to (Acts 16:7). But what they did appears to have been a conscious, sceptical testing of whether the Lord was really amongst them or not.</p><p><i>Behold, the feet of those that have buried your husband are at the door; and they shall carry you out</i>- This suggests that Peter suspected she would be impenitent. The young brothers were waiting in expectation of dealing with her corpse; or perhaps &quot;the feet&quot; suggests Peter had heard their footsteps returning from having buried Ananias. We also sense that she was alone with Peter, without the presence of others- as if to try to make the temptation to pride and maintenance of face and image somewhat less. She could have quietly confessed to Peter; but her pride was strong, unto death. We note how in the early church, there was the power of the Spirit to smite with sickness, and also to heal from it; and here we see there was even the power to slay with death.</p>