Acts 22:17

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 great work. Subsequently, when he went up to the Holy City, in the temple there, he received, while in a trance, the positive direction which determined him to devote himself to preaching the cross of Christ afar off among the isles of the Gentiles.

Paul dwells especially on the fact of this second voice of the Divine Wisdom, ordering him to devote his life's work to the Gentiles, coming to him when praying in the temple of Jerusalem. He would show the people who charged him with being a traitor to the chosen race, that his becoming a Christian had neither made him forget Jerusalem nor the glorious House on Mount Zion.

I was in a trance, or ecstasy. This apparently was no uncommon state of mind and body for those persons who were chosen to make known in a special way the will of God. For good instances of this miraculously suspended action of the normal working of the senses, see Numbers 24:4, the vision of Balaam: ‘He hath said, which heard the words of God, which saw the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open;' and 2 Corinthians 12:3, the vision of Paul, where he speaks of himself as, Whether in the body, or out of the body, he could not tell: and that then he was caught up into Paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it was not lawful for a man to utter. See, too, among other places, for the vision of John on the Lord's day, Revelation 1:10. There is no probability that this vision in the temple was identical with the one above referred to in 2 Corinthians 12:3, where a vision of heaven was vouchsafed to him. Here a direct and positive command was given him. St. Paul had many similar revelations in the course of his life.