Acts 9: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Saul sets out for Damascus to arrest followers of Jesus, is stopped by a light and a voice on the road, and is blinded for three days until Ananias comes to him; Saul is baptized and begins preaching in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God. Plots against his life send him out of Damascus in a basket and later out of Jerusalem to Tarsus, and the churches in Judea, Galilee, and Samaria have a time of peace and growth. The chapter then follows Peter to Lydda, where he heals a paralyzed man named Aeneas, and to Joppa, where he raises a disciple named Tabitha from the dead and stays on with Simon the tanner.

Claim by Claim

1. 9:1
   • Saul was still breathing out threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.
   • Saul went to the high priest.
2. 9:2
   • Saul asked the high priest for letters to the synagogues in Damascus.
   • The letters were so that if Saul found any who belonged to the Way, he could bring them bound to Jerusalem.
   • The people he sought included both men and women.
3. 9:3
   • As Saul journeyed he came near Damascus.
   • Suddenly a light from heaven shone around him.
4. 9:4
   • Saul fell to the ground.
   • He heard a voice speaking to him.
   • The voice said, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?
5. 9:5
   • Saul said, Who are you, Lord?
   • The Lord said, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.
   • The Lord said it is hard for Saul to kick against the goads.
6. 9:6
   • Saul was trembling and astonished.
   • Saul said, Lord, what do you want me to do?
   • The Lord told him to get up and go into the city.
   • The Lord said it would be told him what he must do.
7. 9:7
   • The men traveling with Saul stood speechless.
   • The men heard a voice.
   • The men saw no one.
8. 9:8
   • Saul got up from the ground.
   • When his eyes were opened he saw nothing.
   • The men led him by the hand.
   • They brought him into Damascus.
9. 9:9
   • Saul was three days without sight.
   • Saul did not eat.
   • Saul did not drink.
10. 9:10
    • There was a certain disciple in Damascus named Ananias.
    • The Lord spoke to Ananias in a vision.
    • The Lord said, Ananias.
    • Ananias said, Behold, I am here, Lord.
11. 9:11
    • The Lord told Ananias to get up and go to the street called Straight.
    • The Lord told him to ask in the house of Judas for a man named Saul of Tarsus.
    • The Lord said Saul was praying.
12. 9:12
    • Saul had seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in.
    • In the vision Ananias put his hand on Saul.
    • The purpose was that Saul might receive his sight.
13. 9:13
    • Ananias answered the Lord.
    • Ananias said he had heard from many people about this man.
    • Ananias said Saul had done much evil to the Lord's saints at Jerusalem.
14. 9:14
    • Ananias said Saul had authority here from the chief priests.
    • The authority was to bind all who call on the Lord's name.
15. 9:15
    • The Lord told Ananias to go.
    • The Lord said Saul is a chosen vessel to him.
    • The purpose was for Saul to carry the Lord's name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel.
16. 9:16
    • The Lord said he would show Saul how many things he must suffer for the Lord's name.
17. 9:17
    • Ananias went and entered the house.
    • Ananias put his hands on Saul.
    • Ananias called Saul brother.
    • Ananias said the Lord Jesus, who appeared to Saul on the road he was traveling, had sent him.
    • The purpose was that Saul might receive his sight.
    • The purpose was that Saul might be filled with the Holy Spirit.
18. 9:18
    • Immediately something like scales fell from Saul's eyes.
    • Saul received his sight.
    • Saul got up.
    • Saul was baptized.
19. 9:19
    • Saul took food.
    • Saul was strengthened.
    • Saul stayed certain days with the disciples in Damascus.
20. 9:20
    • Saul immediately preached Christ in the synagogues.
    • Saul preached that he is the Son of God.
21. 9:21
    • All who heard Saul were amazed.
    • They asked whether this was not the man who destroyed those in Jerusalem who called on this name.
    • They asked whether he had not come here for the purpose of bringing such people bound to the chief priests.
22. 9:22
    • Saul increased the more in strength.
    • Saul confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus.
    • Saul proved that this man is the Christ.
23. 9:23
    • Many days were fulfilled.
    • The Jews took counsel to kill Saul.
24. 9:24
    • Their plot became known to Saul.
    • They watched the gates day and night.
    • Their purpose in watching was to kill him.
25. 9:25
    • The disciples took Saul by night.
    • They let him down through the wall in a basket.
26. 9:26
    • Saul came to Jerusalem.
    • Saul tried to join himself to the disciples.
    • They were all afraid of him.
    • They did not believe that he was a disciple.
27. 9:27
    • Barnabas took Saul.
    • Barnabas brought him to the apostles.
    • Barnabas told them how Saul had seen the Lord on the road.
    • Barnabas told them that the Lord had spoken to Saul.
    • Barnabas told them how Saul had spoken boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus.
28. 9:28
    • Saul was with them, coming in and going out at Jerusalem.
29. 9:29
    • Saul spoke boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus.
    • Saul disputed against the Grecians.
    • The Grecians attempted to kill him.
30. 9:30
    • The brothers learned of this.
    • They brought Saul down to Caesarea.
    • They sent him off to Tarsus.
31. 9:31
    • The churches throughout all Judaea and Galilee and Samaria had rest.
    • The churches were built up.
    • The churches walked in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit.
    • The churches were multiplied.
32. 9:32
    • Peter passed through all those parts.
    • Peter came down to the saints who lived at Lydda.
33. 9:33
    • Peter found there a certain man named Aeneas.
    • Aeneas had been lying on a bed for eight years.
    • Aeneas was paralyzed.
34. 9:34
    • Peter said to him, Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you.
    • Peter told him to get up and make his bed.
    • Aeneas got up immediately.
35. 9:35
    • All who lived at Lydda and Sharon saw him.
    • They turned to the Lord.
36. 9:36
    • At Joppa there was a certain disciple named Tabitha.
    • Her name translated is Dorcas.
    • This woman was full of good works and acts of charity that she did.
37. 9:37
    • In those days she became sick and died.
    • They washed her.
    • They laid her in an upper room.
38. 9:38
    • Lydda was near Joppa.
    • The disciples heard that Peter was in Lydda.
    • They sent two men to him.
    • They urged him not to delay in coming to them.
39. 9:39
    • Peter got up and went with them.
    • When he arrived they brought him into the upper room.
    • All the widows stood by him weeping.
    • The widows showed the tunics and garments that Dorcas made while she was with them.
40. 9:40
    • Peter put them all outside.
    • Peter kneeled down and prayed.
    • Peter turned to the body.
    • Peter said, Tabitha, arise.
    • She opened her eyes.
    • When she saw Peter she sat up.
41. 9:41
    • Peter gave her his hand.
    • Peter lifted her up.
    • Peter called the saints and the widows.
    • Peter presented her alive.
42. 9:42
    • It became known throughout all Joppa.
    • Many believed in the Lord.
43. 9:43
    • Peter stayed many days in Joppa.
    • He stayed with a certain Simon, a tanner.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

9:1

"Breathing out threatenings and slaughter" is a Greek idiom: threat and murder were the air Saul breathed. The high priest presided over the temple in Jerusalem and headed the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council, and his authority was recognized by Jewish communities well beyond Judea.

9:2

Damascus lay about 135 miles northeast of Jerusalem, roughly a week on foot, and outside Judea's borders. The letters were not warrants in the Roman sense but credentials asking the synagogue leaders there to hand over members of the movement. "This way" is one of the earliest names for the followers of Jesus, used again in Acts 19, 22 and 24; they were known simply as the Way before anyone called them Christians.

9:3

"Heaven" in the King James often means simply the sky, not a place; the point is that the light came from above and was not from any earthly source.

9:4

The King James says "why persecutest thou me?" To persecute someone is to hunt them down and punish them for what they believe.

9:5

"Pricks" in 1611 meant goads: pointed sticks used to drive oxen. An animal that kicked back at the goad only drove the point in deeper, and the saying was a common proverb in Greek for fighting something stronger than yourself. The earliest Greek manuscripts of Acts do not contain this sentence here, or the first clause of verse 6; the King James translators worked from later copies into which the wording had been carried over from Saul's retelling in Acts 26:14.

9:7

The Greek here says the men heard the voice but saw no one. In Acts 22:9 Saul says they saw the light but did not hear the voice speaking to him. The Greek word for "voice" also means simply "sound," and the two accounts use different grammatical constructions of the verb "hear," so the difference may be between hearing a noise and making out words. The tension is in the text and translators do not agree on how to resolve it.

9:9

Going without food and drink for three days is more than shock. Total abstinence was the sharpest form of Jewish fasting, undertaken in mourning or in urgent appeal to God.

9:10

A vision is like a dream that comes while a person is awake. It was one way people in the Bible received a message from God.

9:11

The street called Straight was the colonnaded main road running east to west through Damascus, the sort of long straight avenue Roman city planning produced; its line can still be traced in the modern city. Tarsus was a substantial city in Cilicia, in what is now southern Turkey, known for its schools and holding rights of Roman citizenship.

9:12

People often put their hands on someone while praying for them. It was a way of showing that God's help was coming to that person.

9:13

"Saints" translates a Greek word meaning "holy ones," that is, people set apart as God's. In the New Testament it is an ordinary term for all believers, not a title for the exceptionally virtuous; the later sense of a canonized saint is centuries away.

9:14

To "call on" a name meant to invoke it in prayer and worship, and so to be publicly identified as belonging to that person. It functioned as a label for the group, as verse 21 shows.

9:15

"Vessel" here translates a Greek word meaning a container or a tool, so the sense is an instrument God has picked out for a job. "Gentiles" translates a word meaning "the nations": everyone who was not Jewish.

9:17

Placing hands on someone was a standard gesture in Jewish practice for blessing, for commissioning a person to a task, and for healing. It marked what was happening as deliberate and personal, not incidental touch.

9:18

The Greek word means flakes or scales, the kind on a fish. The text says "something like" scales; it is describing the sensation, not diagnosing an eye condition. "Forthwith" in 1611 meant immediately.

9:19

"Meat" in 1611 meant food of any kind, not flesh specifically.

9:20

A synagogue was the local gathering place where Jews met to read and discuss the scriptures. Visiting Jews with learning were customarily invited to speak, which is how Saul got a hearing in city after city.

9:22

"Confounded" here means left them with no answer, not left them confused. "Very" in 1611 meant true or real, so "very Christ" is "truly the Christ." Christ is the Greek word for "anointed one," the exact equivalent of the Hebrew Messiah; it is a title, not a surname.

9:23

"Many days" is an indefinite Greek expression. In his own letter to the Galatians, Paul says three years passed between his call and his return to Jerusalem, which is more time than Luke's compressed account here suggests on its own.

9:24

"Laying await" means their ambush or plot. A walled city could be entered only through its gates, which were shut at night and guarded, so watching the gates was an effective way to trap someone inside.

9:25

Houses were often built against or on top of a city wall, with windows opening over the outside; Paul's own account in 2 Corinthians 11:33 mentions a window. The basket was a large woven hamper of the kind used to carry goods.

9:26

The apostles were the group Jesus chose to lead his followers. The word apostle means someone who is sent out with a message.

9:27

Barnabas was introduced in Acts 4:36 as Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, nicknamed Barnabas by the apostles. Vouching for a man the community feared carried real risk to his own standing.

9:28

"Coming in and going out" is a Hebrew idiom for the whole ordinary round of daily life, so the sense is that he moved freely among them as one of their own.

9:29

"Grecians" in 1611 did not mean Greeks. The Greek word means Hellenists: Jews whose everyday language was Greek rather than Aramaic, many of them raised outside Judea. Saul, from Tarsus, was one of them, which is why he could argue with them in their own synagogues.

9:30

"Brethren" is the ordinary word for fellow believers, men and women alike. Caesarea was the port on the Mediterranean coast that served as the Roman administrative capital of Judea. Tarsus was Saul's home city, so they were putting him on a ship home, out of reach.

9:31

"Edified" comes from the Latin for building, and the Greek image is the same: the community was being built up like a structure. "Fear of the Lord" in biblical usage means reverence and awe rather than fright.

9:32

"Quarters" in 1611 meant districts or regions generally, not city neighborhoods. Lydda was a town on the coastal plain about eleven miles inland from Joppa, called Lod in the Old Testament and still called that today.

9:33

"Palsy" in 1611 meant paralysis. Eight years bedridden meant he was dependent on others for everything.

9:34

"Maketh thee whole" means heals. The Greek imperative translated "make thy bed" literally means "spread for yourself"; most take it as rolling up or making up the mat he had lain on for eight years, though some translators read it as "set the table for yourself." Either way it is an order to do for himself something he had not done in eight years.

9:35

Sharon is not a town but the fertile coastal plain running north from Joppa, so the phrase covers Lydda and the whole farming region around it.

9:36

Joppa was the main seaport on this stretch of coast, the modern Jaffa, part of Tel Aviv. Tabitha is Aramaic and Dorcas is Greek, and both words mean gazelle; a woman in a trading port could easily be known by both. "Almsdeeds" means gifts of money or goods to the poor, a duty Jewish teaching took seriously.

9:37

In that climate burial normally followed death the same day, and the body was washed as a matter of course. Laying her in an upstairs room rather than taking her out for burial means they were deliberately holding off, which fits their sending for Peter.

9:38

The eleven miles between Lydda and Joppa was about half a day's walk each way, so the round trip could be done before the delay became impossible.

9:39

A widow without husband or grown sons had no income of her own, and caring for widows was one of the first practical tasks the young church organized, as Acts 6 shows. "Coats and garments" translates two distinct words: the tunic worn next to the skin and the heavier outer cloak. The Greek can mean the widows were displaying clothes Dorcas had made, or holding out the ones they had on.

9:40

"Put them all forth" means he sent everyone out of the room. In Aramaic, the words Peter speaks, "Tabitha, koum," are all but identical to the words Mark records Jesus using over a dead girl, "Talitha, koum," a resemblance an early reader who knew the language would have caught immediately.

9:41

"Presented her alive" means he handed her back to them, the formal gesture of returning a person to the people she belonged to.

9:43

A tanner turned animal hides into leather, a process using urine, dung and lime. The stench meant tanneries were kept at the edge of town, and constant handling of dead animals left a tanner ritually unclean under Jewish law, so the trade carried low social standing. That Peter lodged in such a house is a detail Luke's first readers would have noticed.