Acts 9:3

ἐν δὲ τῷ πορεύεσθαι, ἐγένετο : on the frequency of the infinitive as here, and of ἐγένετο in St. Luke, see Friedrich, Das Lucasevangelium, p. 13, but whilst St. Luke, even more than the other Evangelists, connects his narratives by more or less Hebraistic formulae, so he often tones down the Hebraism by changes of order or other modifications, cf. Luke 1:8-9; Luke 5:17; Luke 6:1; Acts 4:5; Acts 9:3, etc., see especially Simcox, Writers of the N. T., p. 19, cf. also Blass, Gram., pp. 232, 234. ἐγγίζειν τῇ Δ.: for a recent description of the three roads which lead from Jerusalem to Damascus, see Luckock, Footprints of the Apostles as traced by St. Luke, i., pp. 223, 224. We may well believe that Saul in his haste and passion would choose the quickest and best frequented route which ran straight to Shechem, and after inclining to the east, by the shores of the lake of Galilee, leads straight to Damascus, with an entrance on the south; possibly he may have been stirred to “exceeding madness” by seeing in the Samaritan villages indications of the spread of the faith which it was his purpose to destroy (Plumptre, Expositor, p. 28 (1878)). Ramsay, Expositor, p. 199, note (1898), follows the old tradition as to the locality (following Sir C. Wilson). But, as he points out, this locality fixed at Kaukab (so Luckock, also u. s.), some ten or twelve miles from Damascus, was changed in modern times for a site nearer the city (so the Romanist commentator Felten, p. 185, laying stress on ἐγγίζειν); but the spot so chosen seems an impossible one from the fact that it is on the east side of the city, not on the south; see also “Damascus” Hastings' B.D., i., 548. Moreover the tradition for this site (one out of four selected at different times) does not appear to have existed for more than some two hundred years, and although we can well understand the action of the Christians in Damascus. who. on St. Paul's Day, walk in procession to this traditional site, and read the narrative of the Apostle's wonderful conversion, it seems that there is no adequate evidence in support of the spot selected. “It was a true instinct that led the Church to take the Conversion as the day of St. Paul. For other saints and martyrs their day of celebration was their dies natalis, the day on which they entered their real life, their day of martyrdom. But the dies natalis of St. Paul, the day on which his true life began, was the day of his Conversion,” Ramsay, Expositor, p. 28 (1898). ἐξαίφνης : the word is used by St. Luke twice in his Gospel and twice in the Acts only once elsewhere, Mark 13:36. Hobart and Zahn claim it as a medical term, and it was no doubt frequent amongst medical writers, as in Hippocrates and Galen (Hobart, Medical Language of St. Luke, pp. 19, 20), but the word is also used in LXX several times in same sense as here. περιήστραψεν : only twice in N.T. not found at all in classical Greek, but see 4Ma 4:10. The simple verb occurs in Luke 17:24; Luke 24:4. The word is used in St. Paul's own account of the event (Acts 22:6), (and περιλάμψαν in his second account Acts 26:13); noun in classical Greek of flashing like lightning. In Acts 22:6 the time is fixed “about noon,” and in Acts 26:13 it is said that the light was “above the brightness of the sun,” and shone round about those who journeyed with Paul. But St. Luke states the general fact, and St. Paul, as was natural, is more explicit in his own account. But St. Paul's mention of the time of day, when an Eastern sun was at its brightest, and of the exceeding glory of the light, evidently indicates that no natural phenomenon was implied.