Galatians 1:17 - Additional Notes

The purpose of St. Paul's journey into Arabia. The paraphrase given above in the Exposition explains why it is that the apostle mentions his going into Arabia. It is because, at that juncture, he left Damascus to go nowhere else, and because this was a country where there was no man to teach him the gospel. It explains, I say, why St. Paul mentions the journey into Arabia; the journey itself it does not explain. But thin is a point which now claims consideration.

1 . By ancient commentators it was generally supposed that the apostle hastened into Arabia in order at once to begin "preaching the Son of God among Gentiles,'' in conformity with the Divine purpose in calling him to be an apostle, stated in Galatians 1:16 . To this view there are three objections.

2 . A different view has found acceptance with most recent expositors, namely, that he went away into Arabia with the view of withdrawing himself from all human society; alike breaking himself off from his old Pharisean associates among the non-believing Jews, and detaching himself even from those Christian Jews who had been constrained to own him as "brother" ( Acts 9:17 ); in order that, by uninterrupted devotion to prayer, by meditation and study of the Holy Scriptures unbiassed by any extraneous human influences, and, above all, by laying himself open to supernatural communications from the Lord Jesus, and to the informing operation upon his soul of the Holy Spirit, he might win his way into more perfect at-oneness with the facts, principles, and schemes of life, all hitherto so strange to him, which had been just now presented to his soul. It will readily occur to the reader's mind how analogous such a feature in St. Paul's history would appear to that six weeks' retirement of the Lord Jesus himself which intervened between his baptism and his entrance upon his public ministry, to which reference was made above. If, in the case of the guiltless and holy One, such a period of devout seclusion was deemed meet, how much more was it meet, and even above all things necessary, in the case of one both in nature weak and sinful, and with habits of thought and feeling up to that hour so alien to the work to which he was now being summoned! The apostle's statement would doubtless have been more clearly suggestive of this view if he had written, "I went away into the wildernesses of Arabia." But if the paraphrase above offered interprets his tenor of thought justly, it did not lie within his present scope that he should indicate the purpose of his journey at all; it sufficed that he should specify the locality as being one which withdrew him away from all who might have been supposed his possible instructors in the gospel. Moreover, this view furnishes the most satisfactory explanation of any that has been offered, of the omission of this particular in St. Luke's history. Such a retreat from the world needs not to be supposed to have been long protracted. The wonderful vivacity and quick versatility which characterized both the intellect and the feelings of the apostle rendered him capable under the Divine grace of a spiritual transformation vastly more rapid than with most men would have been possible. A period of (say) forty days, such as that during which Moses, Elijah, and the Lord Jesus were severally withdrawn from human association, in order to be brought into closer communication with the spiritual world, may perhaps have sufficed in this case also. And as the word " immediately " shows that the departure into Arabia was the first course of proceeding adopted by the apostle after his illumination, it is a highly probable supposition that it took place directly after his baptism, mentioned Acts 9:19 . Upon returning to Damascus, he would naturally at once attach himself, in the way that St. Luke in the verse just cited makes mention of, to the society of the "disciples" among the Jews, and proceed without delay in the synagogues to " proclaim Jesus, that he is the Son of God" ( Acts 9:20 ). Such being the conditions of the case, it is quite supposable that St. Luke, though perhaps aware of this journey into Arabia, might not have felt that there was any occasion for referring to it; not only because it occupied so brief a space of time, but also because it formed no part of that public life of St. Paul which was the historian's proper concern. He was not likely to have never known of it, seeing that it had been stated in this Epistle.