Acts 9:10

The Visit of Ananias to the Blinded Saul, 10-19.

Acts 9:10. And there was a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ananias. It is certain, from the particular description of Saul in Acts 9:11, ‘One called Saul of Tarsus,' that Ananias did not know him personally. There is nothing positively known of Ananias, except what we read here and in chap. Acts 22:12. He seems to have been one of those upright Jews early converted to the faith of Jesus, and who, after his conversion, was ever zealous in leading a godly life according to the law, and was on that account held in high esteem by the Jewish inhabitants of Damascus. It is merely a tradition which speaks of him as one of the seventy disciples, and which, professing to relate the details of his later life, describes him as subsequently Bishop of Damascus, and eventually a martyr. The name Ananias (Hananiah) is a pure Hebrew one, and is often found in Old Testament history (see Ezra 10:28; Jeremiah 28:1; Daniel 1:6).

To him said the Lord. The Lord who here appears to Ananias is not God the Father, but Jesus Christ. In Acts 9:13, Ananias refers to ‘ Thy saints;' and in Acts 9:14 to ‘all calling on Thy name;' and in Acts 9:17, in his visit to the blinded Saul, he tells him ‘how the Lord, even Jesus, hath sent him that he (Saul) might receive his sight.'

In a vision. Whether the vision came to Ananias when he was in a dream or awake, cannot be determined. We know too little of the laws which regulate the rare communications of the higher spiritual world with us men. These words: ‘Arise, and go into the street,' etc., simply direct him to leave his home, and proceed to a certain spot where he could find Saul.