Acts 22:2

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 account of himself in no hated Gentile language, but in the well-known cherished tongue of the people of God. It is clear from the narrative that the majority at least of his hearers would have perfectly understood Paul had he spoken in Greek. The Hebrew tongue was chosen because he knew they would listen to it, and the event shows he had judged them rightly. ‘When they heard the first words spoken in their fathers' tongue,' we read, ‘they kept the more silence.'

And he saith. The speech of Paul on the steps of the Antonia tower, as reported by the writer of the ‘Acts,' contains three divisions: 1. Act 22:3-8 treat of his early life, and roughly sketch his story up to the day when the Heavenly Vision and Voice changed the whole current of his existence. 2. Acts 22:9-16 relate in detail what took place in the days immediately following this Divine Vision. 3. Acts 22:17-21 pursue the story of his life from the days which followed the Heavenly Vision on the Damascus road until the hour when a second time the Divine Voice spoke to him in the temple, and declared to him what should be the grand object of his life.