Acts 9:23

Acts 9:23. After that many days were fulfilled. Some three years probably had now elapsed since the day when Ananias had restored sight to the blinded Pharisee leader; the Damascus preaching and the Arabian journey and sojourn had filled up the period.

The Jews took counsel to kill him. Saul's great learning and ability made him a most formidable adversary in argument. In bygone years they had murdered at Jerusalem the brilliant Hellenist scholar and orator Stephen (see Acts 7). They now determined to rid themselves of this new and dreaded defender of the faith of Jesus of Nazareth. Chrysostom, in one of his homilies on the ‘Acts,' remarks: ‘They thought they were rid of argument in such questions in getting rid of Stephen; but they found another more earnest than Stephen.' Mr. Lewin (St. Paul, chap. v. observes ‘that the present posture of affairs at Damascus offered a favourable opportunity; had the city been subject to Roman jurisdiction, the Jews could not without the fiat of the procurator or prefect have deprived any man of life. But Aretas (see 2 Corinthians 11:32), to whose kingdom of Petra Damascus now belonged, was less careful of public liberties, and in order to conciliate the Jews he had invested their council and chief officer, called the Ethnarch, with supreme power over their own people. A capital charge was therefore made against Saul, and the Ethnarch, as the representative of the Jewish nation, issued a warrant for his apprehension. The gates of Damascus were watched by the Jews day and night to prevent his escape. Saul, as inflexible in the defence of the Gospel as before, through ignorance he had been furious against it, was willing, we cannot doubt, to lay down his life for his creed; but Providence had destined him for many a long year to stand forth as the great champion of the Church, and to carry its standard triumphantly into far remoter regions. The plot against his life was divulged, and the disciples took him, and at midnight let him down through the window of one of the houses built upon the wall.... The traditional window through which St. Paul was let down was some years ago demolished by a fanatic Mohammedan.'