Acts 9:19 - Exposition

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 Acts 9:19 and Acts 9:20 ; and this seems to be the intention of the A.V., where the clause commencing with Then ( Acts 9:19 ) seems to wind up and close the preceding narrative. This too is the view strongly supported by Canon Farrar, vol. 1. ch. 11., and by Lewin. Alford places the journey to Arabia in the time comprised in Acts 9:22 ; others before Acts 9:22 ; Neander, Meyer, and others, in the time comprised in the "many days" of Acts 9:23 . 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 verse 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. 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).