Acts Chapter 9 verse 19 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 19. - He took food and for when he had received meat he, A.V.; and he was for then was Saul, A.V. and T.R. Some commentators would interpose the journey to Arabia (mentioned Galatians 1:17) between vers. 19 and 20; and this seems to be the intention of the A.V., where the clause commencing with Then (ver. 19) seems to wind up and close the preceding narrative. This too is the view strongly supported by Canon Farrar, vol. 1. Acts 11, and by Lewin. Alford places the journey to Arabia in the time comprised in ver. 22; others before ver. 22; Neander, Meyer, and others, in the time comprised in the "many days" of ver. 23. And this last is undoubtedly the easiest, were it not for the considerations urged by Farrar with great force as to the probability of St. Paul seeking a period of retirement after his conversion before commencing any public preaching, and the further countenance given to this view by Galatians 1:17, where St. Paul certainly says of himself that εὐθέως, immediately, after his conversion he "went away to Arabia." Taking all things into consideration, and supposing that either Luke was not aware of the sojourn in Arabia, or that he omitted from his notes some brief notice of it immediately preceding the description of Saul's preaching in Damascus, which explained the following εὐθέως, it seems best to understand the latter part of ver. 19 and all that follows as subsequent to his return from Arabia; and to conclude that he only stayed at Damascus ἡμέρας τίνας, a few days, after his conversion, and then retired to Arabia. It may be observed, too, that this interpretation gives a significance to the mention of the "certain days" which otherwise it has not. There is a further difference of opinion as to what is meant by Arabia. The most common view is that Auranitis, bordering upon Arabia Deserts, and reckoned as part of Arabia, not above two days' journey from Damascus, is the country meant. But others understand it in its more strictly Hebrew sense of the Peninsula of Sinai (Farrar, vol. 1. p. 212, and Exeursus 9; Dean Howson on Galatians in 'Speaker's Commentary;' Bishop Lightfoot on Galatians 1:17). This view is decidedly strengthened by the fact that, in the fourth chapter of the Epistle to the Galatians, St. Paul clearly means by Arabia the Peninsula of Arabia, where Sinai was (Galatians 4:25). On the assumption that the Sinaitic Peninsula is meant, Bishop Lightfoot says, "He was attracted thither by a spirit akin to that which formerly had driven Elijah to the same region. Standing on the threshold of the new covenant, he was anxious to look upon the birthplace of the old; that, dwelling for a while in seclusion in the presence of the mount that burned with fire, he might ponder over the transient glories of the ministration of death, and apprehend its real purpose in relation to the more glorious covenant which was now to supplant it." His journey to Arabia need not necessarily have occupied more than two or three mouths. It seems certain that he did not preach there, because he says (Acts 26:20), "I declared to them at Damascus first," etc. (see another coincidence between the Acts and the Epistle to the Galatians in Acts 13:2, note).

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(19) And when he had received meat.--Better, as elsewhere, food. The three days' fast had obviously brought about a state of extreme prostration. In St. Paul's account of his conversion in Galatians 1:17, he states that when it pleased God to reveal His Son in him, immediately he "conferred not with flesh, and blood," but went into Arabia and returned again to Damascus. We have, it is obvious, no certain data for fixing the time, nor the extent of that journey. St. Luke does not mention it, and his "straightway" balances the "immediately" of St. Paul's account. On the whole. it seems most probable that it was the first step taken by him after he had regained his sight and been baptised. Physically, rest and seclusion would be necessary during the period of convalescence after the great crisis of his conversion. Spiritually, that solitude was needed, we may believe, to prepare him for the continuous labour of the three years that followed. I place the journey to Arabia accordingly, with hardly any hesitation, after the "certain days" of fellowship with the disciples, and his reception at their solemn meeting to break bread in the Supper of the Lord, and before the "preaching Christ" in the synagogues. How far the journey extended we cannot say. "Arabia" was used somewhat vaguely as a geographical term; but the fact that Damascus was at this time occupied by the troops of Aretas, the king of Arabia Petraea, makes it probable that he went to that region. In St. Paul's paronomastic reference to Hagar as a synonym for Mount Sinai in Arabia (Hagar and Sinai both admitting of an etymology which gives "rock" as the meaning of each), we may, perhaps, trace a local knowledge gained during this journey, and draw the inference that he had sought communion with God where Moses and Elijah had found it, on the heights of Sinai and Horeb. (Comp. Galatians 4:25.) He learnt, it may be, the true meaning and purpose of the Law, as arousing the fear of judgment, amid the terrors of the very rocks from which that Law had first been proclaimed to Israel.