Acts 9:23

ἡμέρας ἱκανάς : whether the period thus described was meant to cover the definite period in Galatians 1:16, i.e., as including St. Paul's visit to Arabia, it is difficult to decide. Lightfoot holds that ἱκανός in St. Luke's language is connected rather with largeness than with smallness, Luke 7:12; Acts 20:37, and that the Hebrew phrase ימים which St. Luke is copying admits of almost any extension of time (Galatians, p. 89, note). Paley, Horæ Paulinæ, v., 2, pointed out in the Hebrew of 1 Kings 2:38-39, an instance of the use of the phrase “many days” = a period of three years (so Lewin, Felten). It is therefore possible that St. Luke might employ an indefinite, vague expression, an expression which at all events is characteristic of him. On the other hand, Wendt (1899), whilst seeing here a longer period than in Acts 9:19, compares Acts 9:43; Acts 18:18; Acts 27:7, and decides that the phrase cannot denote time measured by years (so Blass). A reason for St. Luke's indefiniteness may perhaps be that St. Paul's visit to Arabia was not within the scope and purpose of his narrative; or Belser, Beiträge (p. 55), and others may be right in maintaining that the visit may lie between Acts 9:22-23, and that, as such intervals are not wanting in Luke's Gospel, it is not strange that they should occur in Acts, but that it does not at all follow that the historian was unacquainted with St. Luke's Arabian journey, as Wendt maintains: “sed aliquid omittere non est idem atque illud negare” Knabenbauer, in loco. But if we take the expression, Acts 9:19, certain days to indicate the first visit to Damascus, and the expression, Acts 9:23, many days to indicate a second visit, the visit to Arabia, Galatians 1:19, may lie between these two (Knabenbauer), and if we accept the reading Ἰησοῦν in Acts 9:20, it may be that Saul first preached that Jesus was the Son of God, and then after his first retirement in Arabia he was prepared to prove on his return to Damascus that He was also the Christ, Acts 9:22 (see Mr. Barnard's article, Expositor, April, 1899).