Acts 9:2

and desired of him letters These are the papers which constituted his "authority and commission" (Acts 26:12). From that passage we learn that the issuing of these papers was the act of the whole body, for Paul there says they were "from the chief priests."

to Damascus Of the history of this most ancient (Genesis 14:15) city in the world, see the Dictionary of the Bible. It had from the earliest period been mixed up with the history of the Jews, and great numbers of Jews were living there at this time, as we can see from the subsequent notices of their conduct in this chapter. We are told by Josephus (B. J. ii. 20. 2) that ten thousand Jews were slaughtered in a massacre in Damascus in Nero's time, and that the wives of the Damascenes were almost all of them addicted to the Jewish religion.

to the synagogues As at Jerusalem, so in Damascus the synagogues were numerous, and occupied by different classes and nationalities. Greek-Jews were sure to be found in so large a city.

that if he found any of this way Better, "any that were of the Way." The name "the Way" soon became a distinctive appellation of the Christian religion. The fuller expression "the way of truth" is found 2 Peter 2:2; and the brief term is common in the Acts. See Acts 19:9; Acts 19:23; Acts 22:4; Acts 24:14; Acts 24:22.

whether … men or women We can mark the fury with which Saul raged against the Christians from this mention of the "women" as included among those whom he committed or desired to commit to prison. Cp. Acts 8:3 and Acts 22:4. The women played a more conspicuous part among the early Christians than they were allowed to do among the Jews. See note on Acts 1:14.

he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem That the whole authority of the Great Sanhedrin might be employed for the extinction of the new teaching.