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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Acts 9:9 - 9:9
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9. ἡμέρας τρεῖς, three days. During this time we cannot but think the illumination of his mind was being enlarged by the Spirit. He had been convinced by the vision that Jesus was risen from the dead and ascended into heaven. But more than this was needed for the preparation of this mighty missionary. He himself (Gal 1:16) speaks of God revealing His Son not only to but in him, and that his conferences were not with flesh and blood, and we are told below (Act 9:12) that the coming of Ananias had been made known unto him by vision. To this solemn time of darkness may also perhaps be referred some of those ‘visions and revelations of the Lord’ which the Apostle speaks of to the Corinthians (2Co 12:1-4). While his bodily powers were for a time in suspense, he may fitly describe himself as not knowing whether what he saw was revealed to him ‘in the body or out of the body,’ and it was the spiritual vision only which saw the third heaven and paradise, and the spirit heard those ‘unspekable words which it is not lawful for a man to utter.’ The Apostle no doubt received other divine revelations while he was in retirement in Arabia.
μὴ βλέπων. It is impossible to discern any difference here between μὴ and what the sense could have been with οὐ, and the absence of any such difference is made more apparent by the οὐ which follows twice over in the next clause. On the use of μὴ in such sentences, cf. Winer-Moulton, p. 610.
καὶ οὐκ ἔφαγεν, and he did not eat. The mental anguish for a time overpowered the natural craving for food. The newly-called Apostle was contemplating in all its enormity his sin in persecuting the Church of Christ, and though there were times of comfort and refreshing before Ananias came, yet the great thought which filled Saul’s mind would be sorrow for his late mad and misdirected zeal, and so the three days of blindness formed a period of deep penitence.