Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Acts 9:9
And he was three days without sight, and neither did eat nor drink.
9. And he was three days without sight ] During this time we cannot but think the illumination of his mind was being perfected 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 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 “unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a man to utter.”
and neither did eat nor drink ] 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.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
And neither did eat nor drink – Probably because he was overwhelmed with a view of his sins, and was thus indisposed to eat. All the circumstances would contribute to this. His past life; his great sins; the sudden change in his views; his total absorption in the vision; perhaps also his grief at the loss of his sight, would all fill his mind, and indispose him to partake of food. Great grief always produces this effect. And it is not uncommon now for an awakened and convicted sinner, in view of his past sins and danger, to be so pained as to destroy his inclination for food, and to produce involuntary fasting. We are to remember also that Paul had yet no assurance of forgiveness. He was arrested, alarmed, convinced that Jesus was the Messiah, and humbled, but he had not found comfort. He was brought to the dust, and left to three painful days of darkness and suspense, before it was told him what he was to do. In this painful and perplexing state, it was natural that he should abstain from food. This case should not be brought now, however, to prove that convicted sinners must remain in darkness and under conviction. Sails case was extraordinary. His blindness was literal. This state of darkness was necessary to humble him and fit him for his work. But the moment a sinner will give his heart to Christ, he may find peace. If he resists, and rebels longer, it will be his own fault. By the nature of the ease, as well as by the promises of the Bible, if a sinner will yield himself at once to the Lord Jesus, he will obtain peace. That sinners do not sooner obtain peace is because they do not sooner submit themselves to God.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 9. Neither did eat nor drink.] The anxiety of his mind and the anguish of his heart were so great that he had no appetite for food; and he continued in total darkness and without food for three days, till Ananias proclaimed salvation to him in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Some have thought that in these three days Paul had that rapture into the third heavens, which he speaks of, 2Co 12:2; but that seems rather to have been afterwards; God would, however, by this humble and try him, and excite his dependence wholly upon him, and that he might value his restored sight the more.
Neither did eat nor drink; that by fasting he might be more intent in prayer; for fasting does prepare for prayer, and therefore fasting and prayer are so often put together, Mat 17:21; Act 13:3. In those places they could fast longer without prejudice to their health, than amongst us, and, as I might add, were more willing to fast for any spiritual advantage than we are.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
9. And he was three days withoutsight, and neither did eat nor drinkthat is, according to theHebrew mode of computation: he took no food during theremainder of that day, the entire day following, and so much of thesubsequent day as elapsed before the visit of Ananias. Such a periodof entire abstinence from food, in that state of mental absorptionand revolution into which he had been so suddenly thrown, is inperfect harmony with known laws and numerous facts. But what threedays those must have been! “Only one other space of three days’duration can be mentioned of equal importance in the history of theworld” [HOWSON].Since Jesus had been revealed not only to his eyes but to hissoul (see on Ga 1:15, 16),the double conviction must have immediately flashed upon him, thathis whole reading of the Old Testament hitherto had been wrong, andthat the system of legal righteousness in which he had, up to thatmoment, rested and prided himself was false and fatal. What materialsthese for spiritual exercise during those three days of totaldarkness, fasting, and solitude! On the one hand, whatself-condemnation, what anguish, what death of legal hope, whatdifficulty in believing that in such a case there could be hope atall; on the other hand, what heartbreaking admiration of the gracethat had “pulled him out of the fire,” what resistlessconviction that there must be a purpose of love in it, and whattender expectation of being yet honored, as a chosen vessel, todeclare what the Lord had done for his soul, and to spread abroad thesavor of that Name which he had so wickedly, though ignorantly,sought to destroymust have struggled in his breast during thosememorable days! Is it too much to say that all that profound insightinto the Old Testament, that comprehensive grasp of the principles ofthe divine economy, that penetrating spirituality, that vividapprehension of man’s lost state, and those glowing views of theperfection and glory of the divine remedy, that beautiful ideal ofthe loftiness and the lowliness of the Christian character, thatlarge philanthropy and burning zeal to spend and be spent through allhis future life for Christ, which distinguish the writings of thischiefest of the apostles and greatest of men, were all quickened intolife during those three successive days?
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And he was three days without sight,…. Without bodily sight; for otherwise all this while his spiritual sight was increasing, and Christ was giving him by his Spirit a full view of himself, his state and case, and where his salvation was; and a clear insight into the doctrines of the Gospel, which he is said to have by the revelation of Christ, whereby he was fitted for the immediate preaching of it:
and neither did eat nor drink; having no regard unto, or time for either; being filled with grief and sorrow, and true repentance for sin, and taken up in prayer to God, and employed in attending to, and receiving the doctrines of grace, he was afterwards to publish.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Not seeing ( ). The usual negative of the participle. It was a crisis for Saul, this sudden blindness for three days ( , accusative of extent of time). Later (Ga 4:15) Paul has an affection of the eyes which may have been caused by this experience on the road to Damascus or at least his eyes may have been predisposed by it to weakness in the glare of the Syrian sun in the land where today so much eye trouble exists. He neither ate nor drank anything, for his appetite had gone as often happens in a crisis of the soul. These must have been days of terrible stress and strain.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
1) “And he was three days without sight,” (kai hen hemeras treais me blepon) “And he was not seeing (or in a blind condition) for a period of three days,” so that he had to be led about by the hand of his companions who journeyed with him on the official persecution and prosecution mission, Act 9:8; Act 22:11.
2) “And neither did eat nor drink,” (kai ouk ephagen oude epien) “And neither ate nor drank,” for that period of three days of fasting, as he journeyed into Damascus. Ananias then came to the house of Judas, in the street called Straight, where Saul was fasting and praying in sorrow, awaiting for his sight to be restored, and to be baptized, to prepare him to begin his mission to the Gentiles, Act 22:11-16; Act 26:12-17.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
9. Whereas he saith, that he neither ate nor drank for the space of three days, that is to be counted a part of the miracle. For although the men of the east country endure hunger better than we, yet we do not read that any did fast three days, save only those who had want of victual, or who were constrained by some greater necessity. Therefore we gather that Paul was wonderfully afraid, (581) seeing that being, as it were, dead, he tasted no meat for three days.
(581) “ Expavefactum,” terrified.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(9) He was three days without sight.It is natural to think of this period of seclusion from the visible world as one of spiritual communion with the invisible, and we can hardly be wrong in referring the visions and revelations of the Lord, the soaring as to the third heaven, and the Paradise of God, of which he speaks fourteen or fifteen years later, to this period. (See Notes on 2Co. 12:1-4.) The conditions of outward life were suspended, and he lived as one fallen into a trancein the ecstacy of an apocalyptic rapture. (Comp. the analogous phenomena in Eze. 8:1-4.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
9. Without sight We look for the cause of this blindness, which affected Saul alone of this company, less into the region of matter than of soul. It was, perhaps, the powerful collision of spiritual forces, the Divine upon the human, which drove the perceptive power of Saul inward and disabled it from action.
Neither did eat nor drink The spirit, forced from external action, concentrated inwardly upon itself.
Three days If we contemplate the awful struggle within the mighty spirit of this great man, in the present hey-day of his young manhood, we shall not wonder that its violence left no vitality for the outer perceptions or sensations. Like a powerful rail-train, he is stopped and driven back by a solid collision, and terrible and apparently wrecking is the recoil. 1. Jesus of Nazareth and his Church, strange to say, are true and divine! Whatever a Christian is, that Paul must now be, at whatever cost. 2. The whole structure of his past life, education, and hopes is in ruins, from which he must emerge a new Man 1:3 . The sin of relentless slaughters, real or purposed, presses heavy on his soul and demands deep repentance. 4. He had supposed hitherto that he was keeping the law to the very highest standard; but now he sees that he has never known the law in its essence, and that he has broken and destroyed it to the very foundations. The experience of Rom 7:5-13, is now actually undergone. He was imaginarily alive without the real law; that law comes and he is dead. Who shall deliver him from this death, pressing like a dead body upon him? 5. Stephen beheld the glorified Jesus in Act 7:55-56. Saul, standing by, beheld Stephen, in a rapture of prayer, commit his spirit to that heavenly Jesus. Saul has now seen that same glorified Jesus, and turns to him for help, committing himself to him for salvation. And now, “Behold, he prayeth!” It is time for Ananias to be called.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘And he was three days without sight, and did neither eat nor drink.’
The condition of blindness lasted ‘three days’. In accordance with usual custom this could mean anything from one and a half days upwards (‘three days’ often signifying part of a day, a day, and part of a day). During that time he did not eat or drink. We can understand that he was traumatised, and that his mind had to take its time to adjust itself to this remarkable experience which had turned all his thinking upside down, for it was no longer possible for him to see Jesus as a charlatan. The idea took some getting used to. Rather he now recognised Him as Someone to be reckoned with. And he wanted to be left alone to think about it without being pestered with food. The fasting was clearly his own choice as he thought his way through what he had experienced. His life was, as it were, beginning again.
Luke may well have intended us here to compare how Jesus was in the grave for three days, after which He partook of food (Luk 24:41-43). Here Saul is, as it were, seen as being ‘crucified’ with Him and rising again with Him (Gal 2:20).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Act 9:9. And he was three days without sight, Scales grew over his eyes, not only to intimate to him the blindness of the state that he had been in, but to impress him also with the deeper sense of the almighty power of Christ, and to turn his thoughts inwards, while he was rendered less capable of conversing with external objects. This would also be a manifest token to others, of what had happened to him in his journey, and ought to have been very convincing and humbling to those bigoted Jews, to whom, as the most probable associates in the cruel work that he intended, the sanhedrim had directed those letters, which Saul would no doubt destroy as soon as possible. It is very doubtful, and cannot at present be determined, whether the fast of three days, here mentioned, was a voluntary one, undertaken by Saul, in consequence of his deep humiliation on account of his former persecutions, or whether it was the result of that bodily disorder, into which he was thrown by the vision, and of the attachment of his mind to those new and astonishing divine revelations, with which during this time he seems to have been favoured. See 2Co 12:1. Gal 1:11. If we compare the prophet Daniel’s being affected by some of his visions, with this case of Saul, we shall find that they bear a great resemblance;only Daniel had not been guilty of such great crimes, and consequently did not pass through such bitter repentance, as Saul had. See the Reflections on this chapter.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
And he was three days without sight, and neither did eat nor drink.
I should not have thought it necessary to have paused over those verses, with any other remarks, than merely to have observed, that the Lord’s account of the manner in which those days were spent by Saul, was in prayer, see verse 11 (Act 9:11 .) But as from hence, it hath been argued by some, that in every saving conversion of the heart to the Lord, there must be, according to Saul’s example, three days fasting and agonizing, (as it is called;) I conceive that it would be proper, rather to enquire what God the Holy Ghost hath said on this important subject, than what man teacheth; and here also, as in other cases, to compare spiritual things with spiritual.
Now very certain it is, that though Saul, and it may be many beside, have lain a longer time than others in the pangs of the new birth; yet God the Holy Ghost hath caused to be recorded many instances of an act of grace producing an immediate change of heart, from death to life, and from the power of Satan to the living God. Matthew the publican, yea all the Apostles at once followed Jesus at his call. Lydia’s heart was instantly opened by the Lord, and we hear of no delay, nor pangs of the new birth. Even the Jailor at Philippi, though convulsed at midnight, was made joyful in Christ before the morning, Act 16:25-34Act 16:25-34 . And the Church of the Philippians are said to have been in the fellowship of the Gospel from the first day until now, Phi 1:5 . And the Church of the Thessalonians in like manner are said to have received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost, 1Th 1:6 . So that, whatever men may say of such things, very evident it is, that the Lord hath not said it. The Lord the Holy Ghost works as an Almighty Sovereign, when he calls any by his grace. And while some are long in the state of unawakened nature; and others, early called to the knowledge of the Lord; yet in every case of a saving conversion of the heart to God; all these worketh that One and the self same Spirit dividing to every man severally as he will. For as in the birth of nature, it is not the violent pains or the ease which determine the child to be born; but the safe delivery and the reality of life in the babe which constitutes the birth; so in grace, the cry of the soul, and the hungering and thirsting for Christ; these are the sure signs of the new birth, in which the Spirit witnesseth to the spirits of the Lord’s people, that they are the children of God, Rom 8:16 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
9 And he was three days without sight, and neither did eat nor drink.
Ver. 9. And he was three days ] In this three days’ darkness, some gather by computation of time, that he was now rapped up into the third heaven, and heard those wordless words, , 2Co 12:4 , after that he had been thoroughly humbled. Luther likewise lay (after his conversion) three days in desperation, as Mr Perkins remembereth in his book of Spiritual Desertion, his temptations were so violent, ut nec calor, nec sanguis, nec sensus, nec vox superesset, as Justus Jonas reporteth of Luther, that was by and saw it. (Epist. ad Melancthon.) The like is recorded concerning Mr Bolton, by Mr Bagshaw in his Life.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
9 .] Obs. , his personal subjective state: ., the historical fact.
. .] There is no occasion to soften these words: the effect produced on him by the (ch. Act 26:19 ), aided by his own deeply penitent and remorseful state of mind, rendered him indifferent to all sustenance whatever.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Act 9:9 . : on with participle, characteristic, see above on chap. Act 1:10 . Wendt (in seventh edition, not in eighth), and so Felten, Alford, Hackett, distinguish between and with and , and see especially Winer-Moulton, Leviticus , 5. . would have simply meant blind; . is not seeing ( not able to see ) said of one who had been, and might appear to be again, possessed of sight; the not eating and not drinking are related simply as matters of fact; see the whole section. Blass regards with participle as simply = , so in Act 9:7 with participle = , ut alias (see also Lumby’s note). . . . .: there is no reason why the words should not be taken literally, in spite of Wendt’s objection as against Meyer in loco , as an expression of penitential sorrow and contrition for his perversity (so Weiss and Holtzmann, no less than Felten): “with what fervour must he then have prayed for ‘more light’ ” (Felten). On Saul’s blindness and its possibly lasting effects, see Plumptre, in loco , Felten, p. 196, and on the other hand Lightfoot on Gal 6:11 , and Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller , etc., pp. 38, 39.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
without slight = not (Greek. me) seeing (Greek. blepo. App-133.)
neither = not. Greek. ou. App-105.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
9.] Obs. , his personal subjective state: ., the historical fact.
. .] There is no occasion to soften these words: the effect produced on him by the (ch. Act 26:19), aided by his own deeply penitent and remorseful state of mind, rendered him indifferent to all sustenance whatever.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Act 9:9. , three days) A period worthy of note. Whilst his sight and taste were quiescent, he was inwardly collected in mind and recovered (reconciled to God) through prayer: Act 9:11. The business of conversion is worthy that a man should bestow whole days upon it, when he is being drawn to God. If he does not do so (devote whole days to it) of his own accord, the goodness of GOD confines him to his bed for the purpose.- , not seeing) And yet however he is not said to be blind, because it was not a punishment. Comp. ch. Act 13:11 (where, on the contrary, in the case of Elymas punishment it is said, Thou shalt be blind).
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Act 9:11, Act 9:12, 2Ch 33:12, 2Ch 33:13, 2Ch 33:18, 2Ch 33:19, Est 4:16, Jon 3:6-8
Reciprocal: Gen 15:12 – horror 2Sa 12:16 – fasted Psa 102:4 – so that Luk 6:42 – cast Act 9:17 – that thou Act 13:11 – thou Act 22:11 – when
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
9
Act 9:9. Smith’s Bible Dictionary says, “The instance given of individual fasting under the influence of grief, vexation or anxiety are numerous.” It was natural, therefore, for Saul to fast in view of the change in his plans, including the strange blindness..
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Act 9:9. And he was three days without sight, and neither did eat nor drink. Augustine writes how Saul was blinded that his heart might be enlightened with an inner light. Then, when other things were unseen by him, he kept gazing on Jesus; so piercing, so deep was his remorse, that during this time he neither ate nor drank. He could have no communion with Christians, for they had been terrified by the news of his approach, and the unconverted Jews could have no true sympathy with his present state of mind. He fasted and prayed in silence; the recollections of his early years, the passages of the ancient Scriptures which he had never understood, the thoughts of his own cruelty and violence, the memory of the last looks of Stephen,all these things crowded into his mind during the three days of solitude, and we may imagine one feeling above all others in possession of his heart, the feeling suggested by Christs words, Why persecutest thou Me?”(Conybeare and Howson).
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
See notes on verse 8