Acts 9:26 - Exposition

He for Saul, A.V. and T.R.; and they were for but, etc., A.V.; not believing for and believed not, A.V. The narrative thus far exactly agrees with Galatians 1:17 , Galatians 1:18 , which, however, supplies the motive of the journey to Jerusalem, which is not here mentioned, viz. to see Peter. It seems strange to some commentators that the news of Saul having become a zealous Christian should not have reached Jerusalem after an interval of three years. But first, we do not know. how much of those three years was spent in Arabia, nor how much the unsettled state of Damascus may have interrupted the usual communication between Jerusalem and Damascus, nor how suspicious of evil the poor persecuted disciples at Jerusalem may have been. They knew of the fierceness of Saul's zeal as a persecutor by their own experience; they knew of him as a disciple only by report. It may have been only an instance of the truth of Horace's maxim, "Segnius irritant animos demissa per aures quam quae sunt occults subjecta fidelibus."