Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Acts 26:14
And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? [it is] hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
14. I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying ] The oldest MSS. have only “a voice saying unto me.” Saul alone gathered the import of what was said. His companions only heard the sound, not the words. Cp. Dan 10:7.
in the Hebrew tongue [ R. V. language] Which is therefore represented by a different orthography of the proper name, not “Saulos,” the usual Greek form, but “Saoul,” a transliteration of the Hebrew.
it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks [goad] This is the only place where the oldest MSS. give these words. See note on Act 9:5. The figure is from an ox, being driven on in his work. When restive or lazy, the driver pricks him, and in ignorance of the consequences, he kicks back, and so gets another wound. The words would imply that God had been guiding Saul towards the true light for some time before, and that this zeal for persecution was a resistance of the divine urging. It is not unusual for men who are moved to break away from old traditions at such times, by outward acts, to manifest even more zeal than before for their old opinions, as if in fear lest they should be thought to be falling away. This may have been Saul’s case, his kicking against the goads.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
In the Hebrew tongue; whereby it appears, that Paul spake not now before Agrippa in the Hebrew tongue, as he did before the Jews at Jerusalem, Act 21:40.
It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks: this is a proverb borrowed from the Greeks, as some think, but used in many languages, denoting any who endeavour such things as will ruin or detriment themselves: and so do all persecutors; for they cannot harden themselves against God, his truth, or servants, and prosper, Job 9:4. Not to speak of other pricks, there is never an attribute in God, nor ever a faculty in their own souls, but they kick against, and will be themselves at last pricked by.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
And when we were all fallen to the earth,…. Saul, and the men that were with him, for fear of the divine Majesty, who by this extraordinary light was thought to be present: the other narratives only relate Saul’s falling to the earth; how this is to be reconciled to their standing speechless, in Ac 9:7,
[See comments on Ac 9:7].
I heard a voice speaking unto me, &c. [See comments on Ac 10:4].
[See comments on Ac 10:5].
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
When we were all fallen ( ). Genitive absolute with second aorist active participle of . In the Hebrew language ( ). Natural addition here, for Paul is speaking in Greek, not Aramaic as in 22:2.
It is hard for thee to kick against the goad ( ). Genuine here, but not in chapters Acts 26:9; Acts 26:22. A common proverb as Aeschylus Ag. 1624: . “It is taken from an ox that being pricked with a goad kicks and receives a severer wound” (Page). Cf. the parables of Jesus (Mt 13:35). Blass observes that Paul’s mention of this Greek and Latin proverb is an indication of his culture. Besides he mentions (not invents) it here rather than in chapter 22 because of the culture of this audience. means either sting as of bees (II Macc. 14:19) and so of death (1Co 15:55) or an iron goad in the ploughman’s hand as here (the only two N.T. examples). Note plural here (goads) and is present active infinitive so that the idea is “to keep on kicking against goads.” This old verb means to kick with the heel (adverb , with the heel), but only here in the N.T. There is a papyrus example of kicking () with the feet against the door.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. Or, goads. The sharp goad carried in the ploughman’s hand, against which the oxen kick on being pricked. The metaphor, though not found in Jewish writings, was common in Greek and Roman writings. Thus, Euripides (” Bacchae, “791) :” Being enraged, I would kick against the goads, a mortal against a God. “Plautus (” Truculentus, 4, 2, 55) :” If you strike the goads with your fists, you hurt your hands more than the goads. “” Who knows whether at that moment the operation of ploughing might not be going on within sight of the road along which the persecutor was traveling? (Howson,” Metaphors of St. Paul “).
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “And when we were all fallen to the earth,” (panton te katapesonton hemon eis ten gen) “Then when all of us had fallen to the earth,” had fallen upon the ground, as if struck by lightening; Act 9:4, details Paul’s hearing the voice and understanding his name, while those with him heard not the voice, in the sense of understanding what was said, Act 9:7; Act 22:9.
2) I heard a voice speaking unto me,” (ekousa phonen legousan pros me) “I heard a voice repeatedly, distinctly, saying to me,” as a call of personal nature, such as that of little Samuel and of Isaiah; 1Sa 3:1-10; Isa 6:8; Act 9:4-5.
3) “And saying in the Hebrew tongue (te Hebraidi dialekto) “In the Hebrew dialect, saying,” in the language of national Israel. Saul was his Hebrew name, Paul his later Christian name, Act 9:4. Only he understood the message of the Divine voice.
4) “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” (Saoul, Saoul ti me diokeis) “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” Act 9:4. To persecute the disciples, and church of the Lord, is to persecute the Lord, Act 8:1; Act 8:3; 1Co 15:9; 1Ti 1:13.
5) “It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.” (skleron soi pros kentra laktizein)” It is hard for you to kick and keep kicking against the goads,” the sharp reproof of a guilty conscience, enlightened by the Word of God, testimony of Stephen and other believers he had persecuted, and by the Spirit of God that convicted him of sin, righteousness and the judgement to come, Pro 1:22-23; Joh 16:7-11; Heb 3:7; Heb 4:7; Rom 2:4-5. Paul had been resisting, kicking against the pricking of the spirit, for some time, Act 7:51; Act 7:54.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(14) It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.See Note on Act. 9:5. Here there is no doubt as to the genuineness of the reading.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
14. In the Hebrew tongue A new circumstance, showing both the particularity of the apostle’s own memory, and indicating that Jesus acknowledged his Israelite brotherhood even in commissioning his apostle to the Gentiles.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Act 26:14. To kick against the pricks. Or, Against the goad.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Act 26:14-15 . See on Act 9:4 ff.; comp. Act 22:7 f.
. .] It was natural that the exalted Christ should make no other language than the native tongue of the person to be converted the medium of his verbal revelation. Moreover, these words confirm the probability that Paul now spoke not, as at Act 21:40 , in Hebrew, but in Greek .
] hard for thee, to kick against goads! i.e. it is for thee a difficult undertaking , surpassing thy strength, and not to be accomplished by thee (compare Gamaliel’s saying, Act 5:39 ), that thou (as my persecutor) shouldest contend against my will . , , Schol. ad Pind. Pyth . ii. 173. Comp. Aesch. Agam. 1540 (1624): . See other examples from Greek and Roman writers in Grotius and Wetstein; also Blomfield, ad Aesch. Prom . 331; Elmsl. ad Eur. Bacch . 794.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
14 And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
Ver. 14. I heard a voice ] I not only saw a sign. So in the transfiguration, a voice came forth to them from the excellent glory. Signo verbum est coniungendum. God in the sacraments, for the furtherance of our faith, affects both our learned senses, as Aristotle calleth our sight and hearing; giving us his word both audible and visible.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
14. . . ] These words are expressed here only. In ch. 9 (see note) we have the fact remarkably preserved by the Hebrew form ; in ch. 22 he was speaking in Hebrew (Syro-Chald.), and the notice was not required. (Beware again of the supposed emphatic of Wordsworth.)
. . . . ] This is found here only; in ch. 9 the words are spurious, having been inserted from this place. The metaphor is derived from oxen at plough or drawing a burden, who, on being pricked with the goad, kick against it, and so cause it to pierce deeper. (See Schol. on Pind. I. c. below.) It is a Greek, and not (apparently) a Hebrew proverb; but this is no reason why it should not be used in Hebrew, just as it is in Latin. Instances of its use are Pind. Pyth. ii. 173: . . schyl. Agam. 1633: , . Eurip. Bacch. 791: , . See also sch. Prom. 323, and other examples in Wetst.; Plautus (Truc. iv. 2. 59); and Terence, Phorm. i. 2. 27: ‘Nam qu inscitia est advorsum stimulum calces?’
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Act 26:14 . See notes on Act 9:7 and Act 22:7 , and reading above in . .: this is intimated in Act 9:4 and Act 22:7 by the form , but here the words are inserted because Paul was speaking in Greek, or perhaps he spoke the solemn words, indelible in his memory, as they were uttered, in Hebrew, for Agrippa (Alford). . . .: a proverb which finds expression both in Greek and in Latin literature (see instances in Wetstein): cf. Scholiast on Pind., Pyth. , ii., 173: , . Cf. also Aesch., Agam. , 1633 ( cf. Prom. , 323), Eur., Bacch. , 791, and in Latin, Terence, Phorm. , i., 2, 27; Plautus, Truc. , iv., 2, 59; and there may have been a similar proverb current among the Hebrews. Blass, Gram. , pp. 5, 6, thinks that the introduction of the proverb on this occasion before Festus and Agrippa points to the culture which Paul possessed, and which he called into requisition in addressing an educated assembly. It is not wise to press too closely a proverbial saying with regard to Saul’s state of mind before his conversion; the words may simply mean to intimate to him that it was a foolish and inefficacious effort to try to persecute Jesus in His followers, an effort which would only inflict deeper wounds upon himself, an effort as idle as that described by the Psalmist, Psa 2:3-4 . At all events Paul’s statement here must be compared with his statements elsewhere, 1Ti 1:13 ; see Witness of the Epistles , p. 389 ff., and Bethge, Die Paulinischen Reden , p. 275.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Acts
CHRIST’S REMONSTRANCES
Act 26:14
‘Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?’ No. But God can change the skin, because He can change the nature. In this story of the conversion of the Apostle Paul-the most important thing that happened that day-we have an instance how brambles may become vines; tares may become wheat; and a hater of Jesus Christ may be changed in a moment into His lover and servant, and, if need be, His martyr.
Now the very same motives and powers which were brought to bear upon the Apostle Paul by miracle are being brought to bear upon every one of us; and my object now is just to trace the stages of the process set forth here, and to ask some of you, if you, like Paul, have been ‘obedient to the heavenly vision.’ Stages, I call them, though they were all crowded into a moment, for even the lightning has to pass through the intervening space when it flashes from one side of the heavens to another, and we may divide its path into periods. Time is very elastic, as any of us whose lives have held great sorrows or great joys or great resolutions well know.
I. The first of these all but simultaneous and yet separable stages was the revelation of Jesus Christ.
‘Saul, Saul! why persecutest thou Me?’ They used to think that they could wake sleep-walkers by addressing them by name. Jesus Christ, by speaking His name to the Apostle, wakes him out of his diseased slumber, and brings him to wholesome consciousness. There are stringency and solemnity of address in that double use of the name ‘Saul, Saul!’
What does such an address teach you and me? That Jesus Christ, the living, reigning Lord of the universe, has perfect knowledge of each of us, and that we each stand isolated before Him, as if all the light of omniscience were focussed upon us. He knows our characters; He knows all about us, and more than that, He directly addresses Himself to each man and woman among us.
We are far too apt to hide ourselves in the crowd, and let all the messages of God’s love, the warnings of His providences, as well as the teachings and invitations and pleadings of His gospel, fly over our heads as if they were meant vaguely for anybody. But they are all intended for thee , as directly as if thou, and thou only, wert in the world. I beseech you, lay this to heart, that although no audible sounds may rend the silent heavens, nor any blaze may blind thine eye, yet that as really, though not in the same outward fashion as Saul, when they were all fallen to the earth, felt himself to be singled out, and heard a voice ‘speaking to him in the Hebrew tongue, saying, Saul, Saul!’ thou mayest hear a voice speaking to thee in the English tongue, by thy name, and directly addressing its gracious remonstrances and its loving offers to thy listening ear. I want to sharpen the blunt ‘whosoever’ into the pointed ‘thou.’ And I would fain plead with each of my friends hearing me now to believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ is meant for thee, and that Christ speaks to thee . ‘I have a message from God unto thee,’ just as Nathan said unto David. ‘ Thou art the man!’
Do not lose yourselves in the crowd or hide yourselves from the personal incidence of Christ’s offer, but feel that you stand, as you do indeed, alone the hearer of His voice, the possible recipient of His saving mercy.
II. Secondly, notice, as another stage in this process the discovery of the true character of the past.
Saul was brought to look at all his past life as standing in immediate connection with Jesus Christ. Of course he knew before the vision that he had no love to Him whom he thought to be a Galilean impostor, and that the madness with which he hated the servants was only the glancing off of the arrow that he would fain have aimed at the Master. But he did not know that Jesus Christ counted every blow struck at one of His servants as being struck at Him. Above all he did not know that the Christ whom he was persecuting was reigning in the heavens. And so his whole past life stood before him in a new aspect when it was brought into close connection with Christ, and looked at as in relation to Him.
The same process would yield very remarkable results if applied to our lives. If I could only get you for one quiet ten minutes, to lay all your past, as far as memory brought it to your minds, right before that pure and loving Face, I should have done much. One infallible way of judging of the rottenness or goodness of our actions is that we should bring them where they will all be brought one day, into the brightness of Christ’s countenance. If you want to find out the flaws in some thin, badly-woven piece of cloth, you hold it up against the light, do you not? and then you see all the specks and holes, and the irregular threads. Hold up your lives in like fashion against the light, and I shall be surprised if you do not find enough there to make you very much ashamed of yourselves. Were you ever on the stage of a theatre in the daytime? Did you ever see what miserable daubs the scenes look, and how seamy it all is when the pitiless sunshine comes in? Let that great light pour on your life, and be thankful if you find out what a daub it has been, whilst yet colours and brushes and time are at your disposal, and you may paint the future fairer than the past.
Again, this revelation of Saul’s past life disclosed its utter unreasonableness. That one question, ‘ Why persecutest thou Me?’ pulverised the whole thing. It was like the wondering question so unanswerable in the Psalm, ‘Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?’ If you take into account what you are, and where you stand, you can find no reason, except utterly unreasonable ones, for the lives that I fear some of us are living-lives of godlessness and Christlessness. There is nothing in all the world a tithe so stupid as sin. There is nothing so unreasonable, if there be a God at all, and if we depend upon Him, and have duties to Him, as the lives that some of you are living. You admit, most of you, that there is such a God; you admit, most of you, that you do hang upon Him; you admit, in theory, that you ought to love and serve Him. The bulk of you call yourselves Christians. That is to say, you believe, as a piece of historical fact, that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came into this world and died for men. And, believing that, you turn your back on Him, and neither love nor serve nor trust Him nor turn away from your iniquity. Is there anything outside a lunatic asylum more madlike than that? ‘Why persecutest thou?’ ‘And he was speechless,’ for no answer was possible. Why neglectest thou? Why forgettest thou? Why, admitting what thou dost, art thou not an out-and-out Christian? If we think of all our obligations and relations, and the facts of the universe, we come back to the old saying, ‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,’ and any man who, like many of my hearers, fails to give his heart and life to Jesus Christ will one day have to say, ‘Behold, I have played the fool, and erred exceedingly.’ Wake up, my brother, to apply calm reason to your lives while yet there is time, and face the question, Why dost thou stand as thou dost to Jesus Christ? There is nothing sadder than the small share that deliberate reason and intelligent choice have in the ordering of most men’s lives. You live by impulse, by habit, by example, by constraint of the outward necessities of your position. But I am sure that there are many amongst us now who have very seldom, if ever, sat down and said, ‘Now let me think, until I get to the ultimate grounds of the course of life that I am pursuing.’ You can carry on the questions very gaily for a step or two, but then you come to a dead pause. ‘What do I do so-and-so for?’ ‘Because I like it.’ ‘Why do I like it?’ ‘Because it meets my needs, or my desires, or my tastes, or my intellect.’ Why do you make the meeting of your needs, or your desires, or your tastes, or your intellect your sole object? Is there any answer to that? The Hindoos say that the world rests upon an elephant, and the elephant rests upon a tortoise. What does the tortoise rest on? Nothing! Then that is what the world and the elephant rest on. And so, though you may go bravely through the first stages of the examination, when you come to the last question of all, you will find out that your whole scheme of life is built upon a blunder; and the blunder is this, that anybody can be blessed without God.
Further, this disclosure of the true character of his life revealed to Saul, as in a lightning flash, the ingratitude of it.
‘Why persecutest thou Me?’ That was as much as to say, ‘What have I done to merit thy hate? What have I not done to merit rather thy love?’ Paul did not know all that Jesus Christ had done for him. It took him a lifetime to learn a little of it, and to tell his brethren something of what he had learned. And he has been learning it ever since that day when, outside the walls of Rome, they hacked off his head. He has been learning more and more of what Jesus Christ has done for him, and why he should not persecute Him but love Him.
But the same appeal comes to each of us. What has Jesus Christ done for thee, my friend, for me, for every soul of man? He has loved me better than His own life. He has given Himself for me. He has lingered beside me, seeking to draw me to Himself, and He still lingers. And this, at the best, tremulous faith, this, at the warmest, tepid love, this, at the completest, imperfect devotion and service, are all that we bring to Him; and some of us do not bring even these. Some of us have never known what it was to sacrifice one inclination for the sake of Christ, nor to do one act for His dear love’s sake, nor to lean our weakness upon Him, nor to turn to Him and say, ‘I give Thee myself, that I may possess Thee.’ ‘Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise?’ I have heard of wounded soldiers striking with their bayonets at the ambulance men who came to help them. That is like what some of you do to the Lord who died for your healing, and comes as the Physician, with bandages and with balm, to bind up the brokenhearted. ‘Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?’
III. Lastly, we have here a warning against self-inflicted wounds.
The metaphor is a very plain one. The ox-goad was a formidable weapon, some seven or eight feet in length, shod with an iron point, and capable of being used as a spear, and of inflicting deadly wounds at a pinch. Held in the firm hand of the ploughman, it presented a sharp point to the rebellious animal under the yoke. If the ox had readily yielded to the gentle prick, given, not in anger, but for guidance, it had been well. But if it lashes out with its hoofs against the point, what does it get but bleeding flanks? Paul had been striking out instead of obeying, and he had won by it only bloody hocks.
There are two truths deducible from this saying, which may have been a proverb in common use. One is the utter futility of lives that are spent in opposing the divine will. There is a strong current running, and if you try to go against it you will only be swept away by it. Think of some little fishing coble coming across the bow of a great ocean-going steamer. What will be the end of that? Think of a pony-chaise jogging up the line, and an express train thundering down it. What will be the end of that? Think of a man lifting himself up and saying to God, ‘I will not !’ when God says, ‘Do thou this!’ or ‘Be thou this!’ What will be the end of that? ‘The world passeth away, and the lusts thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.’ ‘It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks’-hard in regard to breaches of common morality, as some of my friends sitting quietly in these pews very well know. It is hard to indulge in sensual sin. You cannot altogether dodge what people call the ‘natural consequences’; but it was God who made Nature; and so I call them God-inflicted penalties. It is hard to set yourselves against Christianity. I am not going to speak of that at all now, only when we think of the expectations of victory with which so many antagonists of the Cross have gaily leaped into the arena, and of how the foes have been forgotten and there stands the Cross still, we may say of the whole crowd, beginning with the earliest, and coming down to the latest brand-new theory that is going to explode Christianity -’it is hard to kick against the pricks.’ Your own limbs you may wound; you will not do the goad much harm.
But there is another side to the proverb of my text, and that is the self-inflicted harm that comes from resisting the pricks of God’s rebukes and remonstrances, whether inflicted by conscience or by any other means; including, I make bold to say, even such poor words as these of mine. For if the first little prick of conscience, a warning and a guide, be neglected, the next will go a great deal deeper. The voice which, before you do the wrong thing, says to you, ‘Do not do it,’ in tones of entreaty and remonstrance, speaks, after you have done it, more severely and more bitterly. The Latin word remorse , and the old English name for conscience, ‘again-bite’-which latter is a translation of the other-teach us the same lesson, that the gnawing which comes after wrong done is far harder to bear than the touch that should have kept us from the evil. The stings of marine jelly-fish will burn for days after, if you wet them. And so all wrong-doing, and all neglect of right-doing of every sort, carries with it a subsequent pain, or else the wounded limb mortifies , and that is worse. There is no pain then; it would be better if there were. There is such a possibility as to have gone on so obstinately kicking against the pricks and leaving the wounds so unheeded, as that they mortify and feeling goes. A conscience ‘seared with a hot iron’ is ten times more dreadful than a conscience that pains and stings.
So, dear brethren, let me beseech you to listen to the pitying Christ, who says to us each, more in sorrow than in anger, ‘It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.’ It is no pleasure to Him to hold the goad, nor that we should wound ourselves upon it. He has another question to put to us, with another ‘why,’ ‘Why should ye be stricken any more? Turn ye, turn ye; why will ye die, O house of Israel?’
There is another metaphor drawn from the employment of oxen which we may set side by side with this of my text: ‘Take My yoke upon you, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.’ The yoke accepted, the goad is laid aside; and repose and healing from its wounds are granted to us. Dear brethren, if you will listen to the Christ revealed in the heavens, as knowing all about you, and remonstrating with you for your unreasonableness and ingratitude, and setting before you the miseries of rebellion and the suicide of sin, then you will have healing for all your wounds, and your lives will neither be self-tormenting, futile, nor unreasonable. The mercy of Jesus Christ lavished upon you makes your yielding yourselves to Him your only rational course. Anything else is folly beyond comparison and harm and loss beyond count.
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
fallen = fallen down. Greek. katapipto. Only here and Act 28:6.
earth. Greek. ge. App-129.
speaking. Greek. lalo. App-121., but the texts read “saying” (lego).
and saying. The texts omit.
Hebrew. See Act 21:40.
tongue = dialect. See Act 1:19.
Saul, Saul. Gr. Saoul, Saoul. See Act 9:4.
it is, &c. Figure of speech Paroemia. App-6.
kick. Greek. laktizo. Onlyhere.
against. App-104.
pricks = goads. Greek. kentron. Elsewhere, 1Co 15:55, 1Co 15:56. Rev 9:10.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
14. . .] These words are expressed here only. In ch. 9 (see note) we have the fact remarkably preserved by the Hebrew form ; in ch. 22 he was speaking in Hebrew (Syro-Chald.), and the notice was not required. (Beware again of the supposed emphatic of Wordsworth.)
. . . .] This is found here only; in ch. 9 the words are spurious, having been inserted from this place. The metaphor is derived from oxen at plough or drawing a burden, who, on being pricked with the goad, kick against it, and so cause it to pierce deeper. (See Schol. on Pind. I. c. below.) It is a Greek, and not (apparently) a Hebrew proverb; but this is no reason why it should not be used in Hebrew, just as it is in Latin. Instances of its use are Pind. Pyth. ii. 173: . . schyl. Agam. 1633: , . Eurip. Bacch. 791: , . See also sch. Prom. 323, and other examples in Wetst.; Plautus (Truc. iv. 2. 59); and Terence, Phorm. i. 2. 27: Nam qu inscitia est advorsum stimulum calces?
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Act 26:14. , in the Hebrew tongue) Paul himself, in this instance, did not speak in Hebrew. For in ch. Act 22:7, which narrates the same incident, he did not, when speaking in Hebrew, add this, in the Hebrew language. The Hebrew language was the language of Christ on earth and from heaven.- , it is hard for thee) Lightfoot observes, it is a Hebrew adage.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
heard
Cf. (See Scofield “Act 9:7”).
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
in: Act 21:40, Act 22:2
Saul: Act 9:4, Act 9:5, Act 22:7-9
hard: Pro 13:15, Zec 2:8, Zec 12:2, 1Co 10:22
Reciprocal: Gen 22:11 – Abraham Mat 17:6 – General Luk 2:9 – and they Joh 19:20 – in Act 9:7 – General Act 22:8 – whom Act 23:9 – if Rom 1:1 – Paul Rev 16:16 – the Hebrew
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE VOICE FROM HEAVEN
I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
Act 26:14
So far as we know, those words were the first with which the silence of the Unseen was broken on earth since the Lord, rising from amidst the Eleven, on the hill-top above Bethany, had given them His blessing as He went. He had been seen once in His exaltation by Stephen, and Stephen had appealed to Him to receive his spirit. But there appears no record of an audible reply. Now, revealed again, Jesus is pleased to speak. He is there, objectively there, there in bodily reality (such, we know, was St. Pauls absolute and lifelong conviction); and the air vibrated there with the spoken words, It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
Is there not a wonder in that sentence, so spoken, and is there not a message in the wonder? We listen; it is a voice from the excellent glory. It is the speech of the Son of God, incarnate, glorified, supreme. What will be the style of His eloquence? What words almost unspeakable will sound from that height, conveying, surely, rather a sublime bewilderment to mortal ears than anything level to their receiving? Well, this was the sentence as it came: It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
Here is, indeed, a paradox, when we come to look at it; a discord, almost grotesque at the first thought, if the words may be tolerated by reverencebut unspeakably thrilling as we think again. The King of Glory, from this place of light, putting out His autocratic power to change the course of history through that sovereign revolution in a human will of the first order, has occasion to speak; and speaking, He uses just a proverb, a homely proverb of the farm. Present to His mind is the ox that drags along the Galilan peasants plough; the beast is sullen in his ponderous strength; he lashes back against the steel-shod goad; and he suffers for it, and he gives in at last. No throne of grace, or of glory, can modify His accustomed and most majestic simplicity. From the midst of the things unseen and eternal He stoops down to talk about the ox, and the goad, and the useless rebellion of the poor beastall in the act of new-creating a Saul into a Paul.
And what are the messages to us of this divinely rustic voice from heaven?
I. Has it not something all of its own to tell us about that upper life, and its inhabitants, and above all about its ascended Prince? To me it seems that heart and mind may feel a strong uplifting power, as they seek there to ascend and there to dwell, in this proverb out of the glory above. It says to us that the Unseen, where Christ sitteth, the Paradise, the Third Heaven, may be indeed the place on due occasion for words unspeakable, which it is not lawful for mere man to utterbut not for them only. It is hospitable also to speak about the humblest works and most laborious days of our mortality. It is no mere sphere of transcendental abstractions, nor even only the palace of Powers and Virtues aloof from time. Heaven keeps a warm and genial continuity of thought with earth, and we need not wonder that its messengers, when their ministry gives occasion, know how to talk familiarly to man about manger and swaddling-clothes, about streaming tears and gazing eyes, about Juda and Galilee, about girdle and sandals, about Paul and Csar, and shipwreck and escape.
II. But above all, this voice from the glory above, as it comes from the lips of our Redeemer, takes us straight back again to His own human heart and faithful sympathy.He is indeed, in the words of the man whom He converted in that great hour, words written (surprising thought) while scores, while hundreds of people yet lived who could remember His face and His bearing at Nazareth or in JerusalemHe is exalted far above all heavens, to fill all things. Through Him, and also for Him, as their sublime goal and Head, all things were made, and among them the mighty kingdoms angelical in all the continents of heaven. But none the less, now as truly as ever, He is the Mothers Son of a human home, the loving Neighbour of a terrestrial countryside. He is Redeemer, Mediator, King of Glory, God the Son of God. But oh! He is also the Friend, the Companion, the Brother, of our simplest, saddest, happiest, tenderest hour below. No fancied gulf of space isolates Him from us as we are; no limits of our body of humiliation confine us below His vivid sympathies. He Who does not forget the Galilan farm takes to His heart the least romantic joys and sorrows of an English life.
Bishop H. C. G. Moule.
Illustrations
(1) Lord Jesus, writes Joseph Hall, in the last of his quaintly noble Contemplations, it is not heaven that can keep Thee from me; it is not earth that can keep me from Thee.
(2) One hundred and sixty years ago, when a narrow but penetrating scepticism had widely and deeply affected educated English circles, an honest and anxious sceptic, George Lyttleton, afterwards first Baron of the name, discovered in the great Conversion, studied afresh with patient and open thought, good reason for intellectual reassurance and a return to reverent faith. He found, says Samuel Johnson, in the last of his Lives of the Poets, that religion was true; and what he had learned he endeavoured to teach by Observations on the Conversion of St. Paul, a treatise to which infidelity has never been able to fabricate a specious answer. Those last words may or may not be true to fact. Few arguments are so massive or so subtle as to preclude the production of a specious answer. But it is surely true that Lyttletons book (enriched not many years ago with a prefatory essay by that suggestive thinker, Henry Rogers) is still extremely well worth reading; it can still remind us, in a way of its own, of the vastness and depth of the historical as well as spiritual significance of the Conversion.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
4
Act 26:14. All of the group fell to the ground but only Paul (or Saul) heard the voice. (See the comments at chapter 9:5 for the meaning of pricks.)
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Act 26:14. And when we were all fallen to the earth. See note on Act 9:7, where the apparent discrepancy between the two accounts is discussed.
I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue. On the use of the Hebrew tongue on this solemn occasion, see the Excursus at the end of this chapter.
It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. This proverb, well known in classical writers, is discussed at length in an Excursus which follows chapter 9. Although these words are omitted in the account of the appearance on the Damascus road by the writer of the Acts in chap. Act 9:5, and must therefore in that place be expunged from the text, here there is no shadow of doubt that the words formed part of Pauls own account of the appearance. Later scribes, as they copied MSS. of the Acts, finding them here, no doubt inserted them in the passage of the ninth chapter, which relates the Lords words to Saul.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
See notes on verse 12
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
Verse 14
The pricks; the goads.