The passage does not say that Herod was the one who was observing pascha.
The immediate context of Acts 12:4 demonstrated that king Herod was aware that his earlier action of vexing certain of the church “pleased the Jews” (Acts 12:3). The context also revealed that Herod “proceeded further” to take another action that he thought would please the Jews. Would Herod be continuing to please the Jews if he supposedly waited to observe a pagan holiday or festival? Would the celebrations and practices associated with a pagan festival please or offend the Jews? Does the context actually maintain that Herod in proceeding further to take Peter would then do something contradictory to this action intended to please the Jews? It was actually Luke that used the Greek word pascha for the time for which Herod was waiting since this verse gives no indication that Herod was being directly quoted. The Bible verse or context does not directly say that Herod was keeping or observing pascha. “The people” of Acts 12:4 could be referring to or would be including the Jews mentioned in verse 3. In Acts 12:11, it refers to “the expectation of the people of the Jews.” Therefore according to the context, the Jews were clearly the people that Herod wanted to please again by his further action. Therefore, nothing in the verse and context proves that Herod could not have been waiting for the Jews to finish keeping their pascha so that he could bring Peter forth and please the Jews again. In other words, the context indicates that Herod did not want to risk displeasing the Jews by executing Peter during their Jewish pascha and may not indicate whether Herod personally had any scruples or principles against executing Peter during a festival. Herod also would have no reason to seek to displease the Jews and to honor and respect the church that he was vexing by waiting until after any claimed church celebration. Therefore, the clear evidence from the context clearly supports the understanding that the Jews would be the ones keeping the pascha [also called the feast of unleavened bread in Luke 22:1] instead of the assertion that Herod had to be the one keeping it. If Herod was also keeping it, the context indicates that it was the Jewish pascha that he would be keeping and not some pagan festival nor any Christian celebration.
In his commentary on Acts, Paton Gloag asserted that the Herod of Acts 12 “was strict in the observance of the Mosaic law” (I, p. 415). Gloag added: “According to the strict Jews, it was not reckoned lawful to defile their festal days with executions, and Herod Agrippa prided himself on being a strict observer of the law” (I, p. 416). In his commentary on Acts, William Humphrey reported that Josephus maintained that this Herod was “strongly attached to the Jewish law” (p. 100). In his commentary, Livermore maintained that “Herod forbore to execute Peter during the feast of Passover, out of regard to the custom of the Jews” (p. 177). In his 1645 commentary on Acts, John Lightfoot (1602-1675) noted: “Agrippa, having laid hold upon him, deferred his execution till after the Passover” (p. 322). Likewise, the 1645 Westminster Annotations have this note on “the days of unleavened bread” at Acts 12:4: “These words intimate the cause why he deferred Peter’s execution, for reverence of the Passover, which lasted eight days.” In the 1695 second edition of his Paraphrase on the New Testament, Richard Baxter has this note on Acts 12:4: “He set sixteen soldiers to keep him, that after the Passover he might sacrifice him to the people.”
Moved by the Holy Spirit, Luke could definitely have used the Greek word in the same sense as he did in Luke 22:1. Comparing Scripture with Scripture, the context of Acts 12:3-4 is in agreement with the understanding that this Greek word was used in the same sense as in Luke 22:1.
Your post is good in connecting Herod’s delay of the Execution to Pleasing the Jews, instead of his celebration of Passover or pagan festival.
On the other hand, there are Undeniable Facts:
1) The verses mentioned Days of Unleavened Bread already but it doesn’t say Herod wanted to execute Peter after DUB, but after Paska
2) Passover comes before DUB, but the verse 3 says it was already DUB
3) End of the DUB is not Passover.
4) It was Herod who intended the execution after Paska, not the Jews. Herod intended to delay the execution.
5) Whether or not Herod celebrated Paska, Herod didn’t want to disturb the Festival of Paska
6) Why doesn’t it say : Herod intended the execution after the Days of Unleavened Bread which was mentioned in the previous verse already?
If it is because Paska or Passover can represent the whole period of the Feast, why wasn’t it used in the previous verse? Because DUB was already used.
7) I don’t think Herod was entirely neutral about the festival and I can easily imagine the ruling class of the Middle Eastern Countries celebrated the pagan festival Ishtar because,
There are so many articles, historical remains, monuments about Astarte, Asherah, Ishtar, Ostara, even Artemis in Acts 19:27-28 as the whole world celebrate the Easter, the pagan festival. This is why Jews didn’t have to necessarily celebrate Easter, but we can imagine the mixture of Jewish DUB and pagan Eastar
8) Which word in Greek were the pagan Festivals Ishtar, Astarte translated into ? All those pagan festivals were translated into Paska, I believe. In other words, Paska didn’t mean only Passover, but Pasahu, Pischa, eventually Easter.
What you couldn’t say is about the Jewish customs or the social situations at that time, because Sadducees often celebrated the different calendars of Pentecost, and majority of the Middle Eastern people would have celebrated Easter as Chaldeans celebrated Pischa, Assyrians Pasahu, Lebanese Astarte, even Israelites worshipped Asherah, and the day of the celebration would have been the first Day of Sun, after the Full Moon and after Spring Equinox.
Even today, I notice Jews don’t know the meaning of Pesach.
What about Christians?
They celebrate Easter! Not Passover! Not the Day of Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ!, but the Day of Resurrection of Tamuz! ( Ezekiel 8:14)
This is why in this year, we have the Easter on April 4, 2021, 8 days after Passover on March 26-27.
Jesus would have been resurrected on March 30, 2021 if He had been crucified on March 27
However, we have Easter on April 4 this year, which has nothing to do with Resurrection of Jesus.
Because the whole world overwhelmingly celebrate Ishtar ( Name of Goddess in Babylon!)
Sadducees calculated Omer only from the next day after the regular Sabbath after Passover, resulting in their Pentecost on Sunday all the time.
What about the Christians today? They believe Pentecost is always Sunday!
Because they count 50 days from the regular Sabbath after Passover.
That’s Sadducee’s calculation.
But the true Pentecost can be any day of the week counted from the next day of the High Sabbath of DUB.
What I am saying here is that the whole world has been full of paganism either at the time of Acts 12:4 or even today.
Pasahu or Ishtar or Easter must have been a huge festival especially in the whole Middle Eastern Region,
and the Easter was quite similar to the End of the DUB ( Days of Unleavened Bread) deceiving even the People of Israel.
Both Easter and Pentecost are all the time Sundays! Celebrating the Holy Day of the Invincible Sun!
The Truth is that Day of Resurrection of our Lord Jesus can be any day of the week after Passover, and Pentecost can be any day of the week counted from the High Sabbath of the DUB.
KJV translators could have raised the questions about this issue because of the contradictions mentioned above, and left Paska as Easter distinguished from other Paska’ translated into Passovers.
I don’t trust any human exegesis over the Bible. John Lightfoot may be a famous scholar, but I remember he interpreted Ignatius’ Letter to Magnesians in the wrong way about the Sabbath. He may be based on Anglican theology or Catholicism.
I often noticed wrong translations of the bibles by many famous Christians, in terms of Clergy System, Catholicism, Mosaic Law, Revelation and Eschatology, etc.
So, your introduction of many famous people means nothing for me, though I rely on the dictionaries and lexicons.
Eliyahu