Acts Chapter 9 verse 13 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 13. - But for then, A.V.; from many for by many, A.V.; did for hath done, A.V. Ananias's answer shows his profound astonishment, mixed with doubt and misgiving, at the commission given to him. It shows, too, how the news of Saul's commission had preceded him, and caused terror among the disciples at Damascus. Little did Ananias suspect that this dreaded enemy would be the channel of God's richest blessings to his Church throughout all ages until the coming of Christ. How empty our fears often are l how ignorant are we where our chief good lies hid! But God knows. Let us trust him.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(13) Lord, I have heard by many of this man.--The words are of interest as showing both the duration and the character of the persecution in which Saul had been the leader. The report of it had spread far and wide. The refugees at Damascus told of the sufferings of the brethren at Jerusalem.Thy saints at Jerusalem.--This is noticeable as the first application of the term "saints" to the disciples. The primary idea of the word was that of men who consecrated themselves, and led, in the strictest sense of the word, a devout life. A term of like import had been taken by the more religious Jews in the time of the Maccabeans. The Chasidim, or Saints (the word occurs in Psalm 16:3), were those who banded themselves together to resist the inroads of heathenism under Autiochus Epiphanes. They appear in the books of Maccabees under the title of Assideans (1 Maccabees 2:42; 1 Maccabees 7:13; 2 Maccabees 14:6). The more distinctive name of Pharisees (Separatists), which came to be attached to the more zealous Chasidim, practically superseded this; and either by the disciples themselves, or by friendly outsiders, the Greek equivalent of the old Hebrew word--and probably, therefore, in Palestine, the Aramaic form of the word itself--was revived to describe the devout members of the new society. The fact that their Master had been conspicuously "the Holy One of God" (the same adjective is used of Him in the quotations from Psalm 16:10, in Acts 2:27; Acts 13:35), made it natural that the term should be extended to His followers, just as He had been spoken of as the "Just One" (Acts 3:14; Acts 7:52); and yet that name was applied, in its Greek form, to James the brother of the Lord, and, in its Latin form of Justus, to the three so named in Acts 1:23; Acts 18:7; Colossians 4:11. It is significant that its first appearance in the New Testament should be as used by the man who was sent to be St. Paul's instructor, and that it should afterwards have been employed so frequently by the Apostle himself (Romans 1:7; Romans 15:25; 1Corinthians 1:2; 1Corinthians 6:1-2; 2Corinthians 1:1; Ephesians 1:1; Philippians 1:1, et al.). The "devout man according to the Law," may well have been among the Chasidim even prior to his conversion to the faith of Christ. The term appears in inscriptions from the Catacombs in the Museum of the Collegio Romano at Rome--"N. or M. resteth here with the Saints"; but probably in the later sense, as attached to martyrs and others of distinguished holiness. . . .