Acts 9:11

Acts 9:11. the street which is called Straight. In the time when the events related in the ‘Acts' took place, ‘the main thoroughfare of Damascus was the street called “Straight,” so called from its running in a direct line from the eastern to the western gate. It was a mile long. It was a hundred feet wide, and divided by Corinthian columns into three avenues.... Remains of the colonnades and gates may still be traced; but time has destroyed every trace of their original magnificence. At present the street, instead of the lordly proportions which once called forth the stranger's admiration, has been contracted by successive encroachments into a narrow passage more resembling a by-lane than the principal avenue of a noble city. At a little distance from the west gate is still shown the house of Judas; it is a grotto or cellar considerably under the general surface. Farther along, and near the eastern gate, you turn up a narrow lane to the left, when you come to the house of Ananias, which is also a grotto' (Lewin's Life of St. Paul).

Of Tarsus. ‘No mean city.' It was the most important of all the Cilician cities, and the acknowledged metropolis. Tarsus was originally of great extent, and was built on both sides of the river Cydnus, and from its consisting of two distinct wings, divided by the Cydnus, took the plural name ‘Tarsoi,' the wings. Its coins tell us the story of its greatness through the long series of years which intervened between Xerxes and Alexander; and at the time when Saul lived under the Roman Government, it bore the title of metropolis, and was ruled by its own citizens, under its own laws. Tarsus at this time was a famous university, and many of the most celebrated teachers at Rome had received their education in this distant Cilician city. It still exists under its old name ‘Tersoos,' and though its former fame and prosperity have long departed from it, it still possesses some 30,000 inhabitants (see Conybeare and Howson's St. Paul, chap ii., and Lewin's St. Paul, chap. 5).

For, behold, he prayeth. This fact of Saul's praying seems mentioned by the Lord to reassure Ananias. The ‘persecutor ‘was praying to the God of the ‘persecuted.' So the Lord's servant might surely look for a favourable reception even from the famous inquisitor Saul.