Acts 9:24

ἐπιβουλὴ : “plot”; N.T. only used in Acts; in three other passages, Acts 20:3; Acts 20:19; Acts 23:30. It is used in the same sense in LXX, Esther 2:22 (for other instances of the word see H. and R.), and frequently in classical Greek. παρετήρουν : if we follow R.V., see critical notes, we have the middle for the active, cf. Luke 14:1; Luke 6:7; Galatians 4:10. There is no contradiction involved with 2 Corinthians 11:32. The ethnarch acted as the instrument of the Jews, at their instigation, or they acted by his permission, or possibly as the Jews were the actual originators of the persecution of Saul, St. Luke for brevity speaks of them as carrying it out, cf. Acts 2:23; Acts 28:27. See to this effect, Blass, Zöckler, Felten, Wendt. τε : if we add καὶ R.V., see critical notes, the two words τε καὶ signify that they not only laid wait for him, but also watched the city gates day and night, to secure the success of their design; “and they watched the gates also,” R.V. In 2 Corinthians 11:32, according to Paul's own statement, the ethnarch under Aretas the king guarded the walls to prevent his escape. But this seems strange, as Damascus was part of the Roman province of Syria. The difficulty is met by a large number of modern writers by the assumption that Caligula, whose reign began in 37 A.D., gave Damascus to Aretas, to whose predecessors it had belonged (Jos., Ant., xiii., 5, 2). On the accession of Caligula a great change of policy occurred Antipas, the old foe of Aretas, who was indignant with him for the divorce of his daughter, was shortly after deposed, and his kingdom was added to that of Herod Agrippa, who had already received from the emperor the tetrarchy of Philip and Lysanias (Jos., Ant., xviii., 6, 10). But this latter grant was one of the first acts of Caligula's reign, and there is nothing improbable in the supposition that the new ruler should also bestow some gift of territory on the great foe of the Herodian house, who apparently reigned until 40 A.D. Added to this there is the fact that we have no coins of Damascus with the imperial superscription from 34 62 A.D. In 62 63 the image of Nero begins, but there are no coins marked with that of Caligula or Claudius. The latter emperor died in 54 A.D., and in a few years Damascus must have passed again into Roman hands, if the above theory is correct. Certainly this theory is more feasible than that which supposes that Aretas had actually seized Damascus himself in 37 A.D., when upon the death of Tiberius (who had supported Antipas), Vitellius, the governor of Syria, had withdrawn his troops and the expedition which the emperor had despatched against Aretas. But whether this forcible taking possession of the city is placed before, during, or after the expedition of Vitellius, we should expect that it would have met with energetic punishment at the hands of the governor of Syria, but of this there is nontion or trace (P. Ewald), McGiffert, who favours an earlier chronology, and dates Paul's conversion in 31 or 32 A.D., contends that the flight from Damascus may have occurred as well in the year 35, i.e., in the reign of Tiberius, as in 38, when no change had taken place in the status of Damascus; the city was subject to Rome, but Aretas may have had control over it, just as Herod had control over Jerusalem. There is at all events no ground for supposing that the term ethnarch denotes that Aretas was only head of the Arabian colony in Damascus (so O. Holtzmann, following Keim, Nösgen, etc.), or that he was only a chance visitor who exercised his authority to the detriment of Paul (Anger); any such suggestion utterly fails to account for the fact that he is represented as guarding Damascus. It has been suggested that the wife of Aretas may well have been a proselyte, but the fact that the Jews of Damascus were both numerous and powerful is quite sufficient to explain the attitude of the governor, Jos., B. J., ii., 20, 2; vii., 8, 7. See “Aretas” in Hastings' B.D., and B.D. 2. McGiffert, Apostolic Age, pp. 164, 165; G. A. Smith, Hist. Geog., pp. 619, 620; O. Holtzmann, Neutest. Zeitgeschichte, p. 97; Schürer, Jewish People, div. i., vol. ii., p. 356, and div. ii., vol. i., p. 98, E.T.; Real-Encyclopädie für protestant. Theol. (Hauck), i., pp. 795 797, by P. Ewald. See further on the title ἐθνάρχης Schürer, Studien und Kritiken, 1899 (1), which he explains by the conditions of the Nabatean kingdom, in which tribes not cities were concerned the head of such a tribe being actually so called in more than one inscription.