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2Co_11:32-33. Paul now actually begins his καυχᾶσθαι τὰ τῆς ἀσθενείας αὐτοῦ , and that by relating the peril and flight which took place at the very commencement of his work. Unfortunately, however (for how historically important for us would have been a further continuation of this tale of suffering!), yet upon the emergence of a proper feeling that the continuation of this glorying in suffering would not be in keeping with his apostolic position, he renounces the project, breaks off again at once after this first incident (2Co_12:1), and passes on to something far higher and more peculiar—to the revelations made to him. The expositors, overlooking this breaking off (noted also by Hilgenfeld), have suggested many arbitrary explanations as to why Paul narrates this incident in particular (he had, in fact, been in much worse perils!),[348] and that with so solemn asseveration and at such length. Billroth, e.g. (comp. Flatt), says that he wished to direct attention to the first danger pre-eminently by way of evidence that everything said from 2Co_11:23 onward was true (2Co_11:31). In that case he would doubtless have written something like ἤδη γὰρ ἐν Δαμασκῷ , or in such other way as to be so understood. Olshausen contents himself with the remark that Paul has only made a supplementary mention of the event as the first persecution; and Rückert even conjectures that it was by pure accident that Paul noted by way of supplement and treated in detail this story occurring to his recollection! Osiander thinks that he singled it out thus on account of its connection (?) in subject-matter and time with the following revelation, and, as it were, by way of further consecration of his official career. Comp. also Wieseler on Gal. p. 595, who likewise considers the narrative as simply a suitable historical introduction to the revelation that follows. But we do not see the purpose served by this detailed introduction,—which, withal, as such, would have no independent object whatever,—nor yet, again, the purpose served by the interruption in 2Co_12:1. According to Hofmann, the mention of this means of rescue, of which he had made use, and which many a one with merely natural courage would on the score of honour not have consented to employ, is intended to imply a confession of his weakness. The idea of weakness, however, is not at all here the opposite of the natural courage of honour, but rather that of the passive undergoing of all the παθήματα of Christ, the long chain of which, in Paul’s case, had its first link historically in that flight from Damascus. Calvin correctly names this flight the “tirocinium Pauli.”
ἘΝ ΔΑΜΑΣΚῷ ] stands as an anacoluthon. When Paul wrote it, having already in view a further specification of place for an incident to follow, he had purposed to write, instead of the unsuitable ΤῊΝ ΔΑΜΑΣΚΗΝῶΝ ΠΌΛΙΝ , something else (such as ΤᾺς ΠΎΛΑς ), but then left out of account the ἘΝ ΔΑΜΑΣΚῷ already written. It is a strange fancy to which Hofmann has recourse, that Τ . ΔΑΜΑΣΚ . ΠΌΛΙΝ is meant to be a narrower conception than ἘΝ ΔΑΜΑΣΚῷ .
ἘΘΝΆΡΧΗς ] prefect (Josephus, Antt. xiv. 7. 2; 1Ma_14:47; 1Ma_15:1; Strabo, xvii. p. 798; Lucian, Macrob. 17), an appellation of Oriental provincial governors. See in general, Joh. Gottlob Heyne, de ethnarcha Aretae, Witeb. 1755, p. 3 ff. The incident itself described is identical with that narrated in Act_9:24 f. No doubt in Acts the watching of the gates is ascribed to the Jews, and here, to the ethnarch; but the reconciliation of the two narratives is itself very naturally effected through the assumption that the ethnarch caused the gates to be watched by the Jews themselves at their suggestion (comp. Heyne, l.c. p. 39). “Jewish gold had perhaps also some effect with the Emir,” Michaeli.
τὴν Δαμασκ . πόλιν ] namely, by occupying the gates so that Paul might not get out. Regarding the temporary dominion over Damascus held at that time by Aretas, the Arabian king, and father-in-law of Herod Antipas, see on Acts, Introd. § 4, and observe that Paul would have had no reason for adding ἈΡΈΤΑ ΤΟῦ ΒΑΣΙΛΈΩς , if at the very time of the flight the Roman city had not been exceptionally (and temporarily) subject to Aretas—a state of foreign rule for the time being, which was to be brought under the notice of the reader. Hofmann thinks that the chief of the Arabian inhabitants in the Roman city was meant; but with the less ground, since Paul was a Jew and had come from Jerusalem, and consequently would not have belonged at all to the jurisdiction of such a tribal chief (if there had been one). He went to Arabia (Gal_1:17) only in consequence of this inciden.
διὰ θυρίδος ] by means of a little door (Plato, Pol. ii. p. 359 D; Lucian, Asin. 45). It was doubtless an opening high up in the city wall, closed, perhaps, with a lid or lattic.
ἐν σαργάνῃ ] in a wickerwork, i.e. basket (Lucian, Lexiph. 6). Comp. Act_9:25 : ἐν σπυρίδι .
On the description itself Theodoret rightly remarks: ΤῸ ΤΟῦ ΚΙΝΔΎΝΟΥ ΜΈΓΕΘΟς Τῷ ΤΡΌΠῼ Τῆς ΦΥΓῆς ΠΑΡΕΔΉΛΩΣΕ .
[348] Arbitrary explanations are already given by Chrysostom (comp. Bengel, Ewald, and others): because the incident was older and less known; and by Pelagius: because in Damascus the Jews had stirred up etiam principes gentium against Paul.