_Paul's Hebrew Speech to the Jewish Crowd in the Temple Court from the steps leading to the Antonia Tower, and the Tumult which succeeded it,_ 1-23. Acts 22:1. MEN, BRETHREN, AND FATHERS, HEAR YE MY DEFENCE WHICH I MAKE NOW UNTO YOU. The accurate translation of the Greek word would be simply, ‘Breth... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 22:2. AND WHEN THEY HEARD THAT HE SPAKE IN THE HEBREW TONGUE TO THEM, THEY KEPT THE MORE SILENCE. He addresses his hearers in the loved sacred language. They would be more likely, he knew, to listen to him whom they fancied was a blasphemer of the law of Moses and the temple, if they heard his... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 22:3. I AM VERILY A MAN WHICH AM A JEW. He starts at once with a statement calculated to allay the suspicions with which many of those who were infuriated against him, without knowing any thing really of his story, regarded him . ‘ I was a Jew', he tells them. BORN IN TARSUS, A CITY IN CILICIA... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 22:4. AND I PERSECUTED THIS WAY UNTO THE DEATH, BINDING AND DELIVERING INTO PRISONS BOTH MEN AND WOMEN. In support of his assertion that he, too, was once a Jewish ‘zealot,' he reminds them that he was formerly a bitter persecutor of ‘this way;' there were doubtless those present in the listeni... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 22:5. AS ALSO THE HIGH PRIEST DOTH BEAR ME WITNESS, AND ALL THE ESTATE OF THE ELDERS. The ‘high priest' in question was not the person holding that office at the present juncture, but the one who happened, at the time of the Damascus Mission, A.D. 37, to be in possession of that high office. Th... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 22:6. AND IT CAME TO PASS. [On the various incidents in the narrative of the miraculous conversion of Paul, see notes on chap. Acts 9:3-19. Any additional facts mentioned in this narration of the same events by St. Paul will be noticed here.] ABOUT NOON. This ‘note of time' does not appear in... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 22:7. SAUL, SAUL. _Here,_ and again in Paul's own account before Agrippa and Bernice at Cæsarea, the language ‘Hebrew' is specially noticed (chap. Acts 26:14); and also in the narrative of chap. 9, the Aramaic (Hebrew) form of Saul, ‘Saoul,' is found. The voice from heaven had so imprinted itse... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 22:8. I AM JESUS OF NAZARETH, WHOM THOU PERSECUTES. More literally, ‘Jesus the Nazarene.' This title of the Lord is peculiar to this account of the conversion. It seems probable that the followers of the Crucified, whom Paul was proceeding to Damascus to persecute, were called ‘Nazarenes,' and... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 22:9. AND THEY THAT WERE WITH ME SAW INDEED THE LIGHT, AND WERE AFRAID; BUT THEY HEARD NOT THE VOICE OF HIM THAT SPAKE TO ME. Much has been said as to the seeming discrepancy between the statement here that Paul's companions ‘heard not the voice of Him that spoke to me,' and the words in the na... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 22:11. AND WHEN I COULD NOT SEE FOR THE GLORY OF THAT LIGHT. We have here another _personal_ memory of the strange eventful scene. In the narrative of chap. 9, we are simply told Saul was blinded; but as we should expect from one who had not only been present at the scene, but had been the chie... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 22:12. AND ONE ANANIAS, A DEVOUT MAN ACCORDING TO THE LAW, HAVING A GOOD REPORT OF ALL THE JEWS WHICH DWELT THERE. In the account of the conversion of chap. Acts 9:10, this Ananias is merely mentioned as ‘a disciple ， ' a follower of Jesus of Nazareth; here, however, we have a detailed descrip... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 22:13. AND THE SAME HOUR I LOOKED UP UPON HIM. That is to say, Ananias stood before the stricken Saul, and spoke as he was commanded the healing words of power; then Saul turned his heavy blinded eyes in the direction of the voice which spoke to him, and the sight came back, and ‘he looked upon... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 22:14. THE GOD OF OUR FATHERS HATH CHOSEN THEE. Another appeal to Jewish thought. Paul here reproduces what ‘the young man whose name was Saul,' heard from the lips of the first martyr Stephen twenty-five years before, when pleading before the Sanhedrim. The whole sentence of Stephen, which was... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 22:15. THOU SHALT BE HIS WITNESS UNTO ALL MEN. In Luke's account of Acts 9:15, the ‘Gentiles' are especially mentioned by name in the colloquy between Ananias and the Lord, who spoke to him in a vision: ‘He is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear My name before the Gentiles,' etc. Here speaking to... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 22:16. AND BE BAPTIZED. The verb in the original Greek is of the _middle,_ not of the passive voice, as the English translation would seem to imply. The more accurate rendering is, ‘have thyself baptized.' The rite in the case of persons arrived at years of discretion was preceded by ‘repentanc... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 22:17. AND IT CAME TO PASS, THAT, WHEN I WAS COME AGAIN TO JERUSALEM. We know that _after_ his conversion and meeting with Ananias, he did not return to Jerusalem, but after a short interval went into Arabia (Galatians 1:17), a period spent probably for the most part in preparation for his grea... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 22:18. MAKE HASTE, AND GET THEE QUICKLY OUT OF JERUSALEM: FOR THEY WILL NOT RECEIVE THY TESTIMONY CONCERNING ME. ‘They' included both the Jews still strangers to the new covenant, and also the Jewish Christians of the Holy City. By the former he was hated as an apostate; by the latter he was vi... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 22:19. AND I SAID, LORD, THEY KNOW THAT I IMPRISONED AND BEAT IN EVERY SYNAGOGUE THEM THAT BELIEVED ON THEE. Paul, in recalling the very words of the prayer he uttered during his ecstasy, wishes to show his enemies charging him with disloyalty to the people, the law, and the temple, that his ap... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 22:20. AND WHEN THE BLOOD OF THY MARTYR STEPHEN WAS BEING SHED, I ALSO WAS STANDING BY, AND CONSENTING UNTO HIS DEATH. It is hardly likely that the sense in which we understand the word ‘martyr,' viz. ‘one who dies for his religion, belonged as yet to the Greek word μάρτυρ or μάρτυς. It would t... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 22:21. AND HE SAID ONTO ME, DEPART: FOR I WILL SEND THEE FAR HENCE UNTO THE GENTILES. He thus traces step by step, very briefly but clearly, how he was led by the directly expressed will of God to adopt the cause which he once persecuted; how he was shown that his life's work lay not with his o... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 22:22. AND THEY GAVE HIM AUDIENCE UNTO THIS WORD, AND THEN LIFTED UP THEIR VOICES, AND SAID, AWAY WITH SUCH A FELLOW FROM THE EARTH; FOR IT IS NOT FIT THAT HE SHOULD LIVE. Literally, ‘they continued to listen to him until,' etc. ‘This word' does not refer to the expression ‘the Gentiles,' but t... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 22:23. AND AS THEY CRIED OUT, AND CAST OFF THEIR CLOTHES, AND THREW DUST INTO THE AIR. The cries were exclamations and ejaculations of rage and indignation, probably for the most part inarticulate. The throwing off their clothes was not, as some have supposed, a preparation for the stoning of t... [ Continue Reading ]
_Paul, on being condemned to be scourged, appeals as a Roman CitizenThe Roman Commander summons the Sanhedrim,_ 24-30. Acts 22:24. THE CHIEF CAPTAIN COMMANDED HIM TO BE BROUGHT INTO THE CASTLE, AND HADE THAT HE SHOULD BE EXAMINED BY SCOURGING; THAT HE MIGHT KNOW WHEREFORE THEY CRIED SO AGAINST HIM.... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 22:25. AND AS THEY BOUND HIM WITH THONGS. This _may_ be the rendering of the Greek words, but it seems better to translate, ‘And as they stretched him out for the scourge;' that is, the apostle was bound to a post or pillar in order to be exposed to the blows of the scourge, and in a suitable p... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 22:27. ART THOU A ROMAN? The haughty officer, proud of his nationality, could scarcely believe that the poor accused and probably insignificant-looking Jew before him was a citizen of Rome. The pronoun is strangely emphatic: ‘ _Thou_ art _thou_ a Roman?'... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 22:28. AND THE CHIEF CAPTAIN ANSWERED, WITH A GREAT SUM OBTAINED I THIS FREEDOM. More literally, and at the same time more forcibly, ‘obtained I this citizenship;' the word, as Plumptre well remarks, expressing not the transition from _bondage to freedom,_ but from _the position of an_ _alien t... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 22:29. THEN STRAIGHTWAY THEY DEPARTED FROM HIM WHICH SHOULD HAVE EXAMINED HIM. That is to say, those soldiers who with the centurion were about to carry the sentence of scourging into execution. It is noticeable how the word rendered ‘should have examined' had acquired the sense of ‘examining b... [ Continue Reading ]
Acts 22:30. ON THE MORROW, WHEN HE WOULD HAVE KNOWN THE CERTAINTY WHEREOF HE WAS ACCUSED OF THE JEWS, HE LOOSED HIM FROM HIS BONDS. In spite of his being convinced that Paul was a Roman, the captain of the thousand garrisoning Jerusalem was uneasy respecting his prisoner; he could not but believe hi... [ Continue Reading ]