Acts 9:1-2

Since Stephen’s martyrdom (cf. Acts 8:3), Saul had been persecuting Jews who had come to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. [Note: See Appendix 1, "Sequence of Paul’s Activities," at the end of these notes.]

"The partitive genitive of apeiles [threats] and phonou [murder] means that threatening and slaughter had come to be the very breath that Saul breathed, like a warhorse who sniffed the smell of battle. He breathed on the remaining disciples the murder that he had already breathed in from the death of the others. He exhaled what he inhaled." [Note: Robertson, 3:113.]

The Jewish high priest’s Roman overseers gave the high priest authority to extradite Jews who were strictly religious offenders and had fled outside the Sanhedrin’s jurisdiction. [Note: Longenecker, p. 369; Kent, pp. 82-83.] Saul obtained letters from the high priest (evidently Caiaphas) giving him power to arrest Jesus’ Jewish disciples from Palestine who had fled to Damascus because of persecution in Jerusalem. This grand inquisitor undoubtedly believed that he was following in the train of other zealous Israelites who had purged idolatry from Israel (e.g., Moses in Numbers 25:1-5; Phinehas in Numbers 25:6-15; Elijah in 1 Kings 18; Mattathias in 1 Maccabees 2:23-28; 1 Maccabees 2:42-48).

"Saul never forgave himself for that. God forgave him; the Christians forgave him; but he never forgave himself . . . 1 Corinthians 15:9[;] Galatians 1:13." [Note: Ironside, Lectures on . . ., pp. 203-4.]

The King of the Nabateans who governed Damascus at this time cooperated with Saul. He was Aretas IV (9 B.C.-A.D. 40). [Note: F. F. Bruce, "Chronological Questions in the Acts of the Apostles," Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 18:2 (Spring 1986):275.] Damascus stood about 135 miles to the north-northeast of Jerusalem, about a week’s journey. It was within the Roman province of Syria and was one of the towns of the Decapolis, a league of 10 self-governing cities. "The Way" was one of the earliest designations of Christianity (cf. Acts 18:24-25; Acts 19:9; Acts 19:23; Acts 22:4; Acts 24:14; Acts 24:22), and it appears only in Acts. It meant the path characterized by life and salvation. This title may go back to Jesus’ teaching that He was the way and that His way of salvation was a narrow way (John 14:6; Matthew 7:14).