2 Corinthians 11:32

ἐν Δαμασκῷ ὁ ἐθν. κ. τ. λ.: in Damascus the ethnarch under Aretas the king guarded the city of the Damascenes, sc.; by placing a watch at the gates, to take me; and through a window (i.e., an aperture in the city wall, or the window of a house overhanging the wall) was I let down in a basket (σαργάνη is anything twisted, and so here probably a rope basket; σφυρίς is the word used in Acts 9:25) by the wall, and escaped his hands. The incident took place on St. Paul's return to Damascus from Arabia (Galatians 1:17) and is narrated in Acts 9:23-25. The date of it is important in the chronology of the Apostle's life. It could not have been before A.D. 34, for coins of Tiberius prove Damascus to have been under direct Roman administration in that year. Tiberius was unlikely to have handed Damascus over to Aretas (fourth of the name), the hereditary chief (cf. 2Ma 5:8) of the Nabathæan Arabs; for up to the close of the reign of Tiberius military operations were being carried on against Aretas by the legate of Syria. Hence Damascus was probably not ceded to Aretas until the reign of Caligula, and consequently this episode in St. Paul's life cannot have taken place before the middle of A.D. 37. Instigated by the Jews (Acts 9:23), the “ethnarch,” or provincial governor of Damascus under Aretas (cf. 1Ma 14:47), laid a plan for the arrest of the Apostle which was frustrated by St. Paul's escape in the manner described (cf. Joshua 2:15; 1 Samuel 19:12).