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Acts 22:1-21. St Paul’s Defence

1. Men, brethren, and fathers] The Greek is amply rendered (with Rev. Ver.) by “Brethren and fathers.” See note on Acts 1:16.

hear ye my defence which I make now unto you] The Rev. Ver. substitutes the for my and puts now before make. There seems nothing gained by either change, the former of which leaves a pronoun which is in the original without anything to represent it. The A. V. does represent it, though not exactly after the manner of the Greek construction.

2. And … Hebrew tongue] The beckoning with the hand (Acts 21:40) had procured silence enough for the Apostle’s first words to be heard, and now they caught the sound of their own dialect.

they kept the more silence] The noun in the original refers not only to peace from cries and shouts, but to general quietness, such as would be produced by refraining from all movements. It expresses a very high degree of quietness. Rev. Ver. has “they were the more quiet.”

3. I am verily a man which am a Jew] The word rendered verily is omitted in the oldest MSS. The Rev. Ver. has “I am a Jew,” and this renders the original fully enough. Cp. note on verse I above. These first words of the Apostle would correct many wrong impressions among the crowd, for we may be sure that many, beside the Chief Captain, had the notion that St Paul was one of those foreign desperadoes with which Judæa abounded at this time.

born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia] Better, “born in Tarsus of Cilicia” with the Rev. Ver. On Tarsus see note on Acts 6:9.

brought up in this city] St Paul means not that from his infancy he had lived in Jerusalem, but that, when he had reached an age fitted for it, he was sent from home to be educated under Gamaliel. The verb is used in this sense in classical Greek. On Gamaliel, see note on Acts 5:34.

at the feet] (Cp. Luke 10:39.) The most usual position of teacher and pupils at the time of St Paul was that both should sit, the former on a higher level than the latter. For the evidence on this matter from the Talmud, see Taylor, Pirke Aboth, pp. 28, 29.

and taught [instructed] according to the perfect [strict] manner of the law of the [our] fathers, and was [being] zealous, &c.] For an account by the Apostle himself of his Jewish birth, education, and character, cf. Php 3:5-6. He was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, and his language shews how learned he was in all that concerned his own people. He makes frequent allusions to Jewish customs, laws, and festivals, and reckons his time by the Jewish calendar. He was also a Pharisee, and none of his contemporaries surpassed him while but few equalled him in strictness of legal observance.

as ye all are] The Apostle wishes to put himself in an acceptable light before them, and for that reason explains that he was, like themselves, a zealous observer of the law.

4. And I persecuted this way, &c.] On “the Way” as the designation of the Christian religion, cp. note on Acts 9:2 We are not told of any Christians who were put to death through Saul’s zealous persecution, for in the case of Stephen he was not a very active agent, but his own statement in this verse, and the stronger expression Acts 26:10, “when they were put to death I gave my voice against them,” make it certain that the persecutions in which he took part were carried beyond imprisonment even to the martyrdom of the accused.

into prisons] The original has the plural “prisons,” and it is probably intended to express by it, what in chap. 26 is given in more detail, the wide field over which Saul’s zeal was exerted, “being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities.”

5. the high priest doth bear me witness] The Apostle refers not to the high priest at the time when he was speaking, but to him who had held that office when (Acts 9:1) in his earnestness against the Christians he had desired a commission from the authorities to carry his persecuting measures as far as Damascus. Josephus (Ant. xviii. 5, 3) tells us that in a.d. 37 Theophilus, son of Ananus, was made high priest in the place of his brother Jonathan. The high priest to whom St Paul here alludes was one of these two brothers, for Theophilus held office till he was removed by Agrippa and his place occupied by Simon, called Kantheras (see Jos. Ant, xix. 6, 2, and cp. Farrar’s St Paul, i. 178). Ananias was high priest at the time of St Paul’s arrest. See Acts 23:2.

and all the estate of the elders] Though it was now more than twenty years since St Paul’s conversion, yet it was not improbable that some members of the Sanhedrin which granted him his commission were still alive, and the records of the transaction were doubtless preserved and could be appealed to.

letters unto the brethren] i.e. to the Jewish authorities in Damascus. The Jews spake of all their race as brethren from early times (cp. Deuteronomy 18:15).

to bring them which were there, bound unto Jerusalem] The English of the A. V. is not free from ambiguity. The Greek is plain, and the Rev. Ver. gives the sense clearly “to bring them also which were there unto Jerusalem in bonds.”

6. about noon] The time of the day at which the vision occurred is not noticed in chap. 9, but in chap. 26 the Apostle also mentions that it was “at mid-day,” at which time the heavenly brightness must have been very overpowering to shine above the glare of an Eastern sun.

7. and heard a voice] As in chap. Acts 9:4; Acts 9:7, so here, and below in Acts 22:9, the case of the noun is varied, so as to mark that the hearing in St Paul’s case was different from the hearing of his companions. The verb can be connected with either a genitive or accusative case. In both the narratives a variation is made, and it was not without its significance (see notes on chap. 9). St Paul heard intelligible words, the others heard a sound, but it was not speech to them. Cp. the narrative in Daniel 10:6-9.

8. of Nazareth] This is found only here in chap, 22, the other two accounts omitting the words, though in some MSS., to make one story exactly like the other, they are inserted in Acts 9:5. Such assimilation of verses to each other is not uncommon in the Acts.