Acts 26:15

And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

26:12-23 Paul was made a Christian by Divine power; by a revelation of Christ both to him and in him; when in the full career of his sin. He was made a minister by Divine authority: the same Jesus who appeared to him in that glorious light, ordered him to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. A world that sits in darkness must be enlightened; those must be brought to know the things that belong to their everlasting peace, who are yet ignorant of them. A world that lies in wickedness must be sanctified and reformed; it is not enough for them to have their eyes opened, they must have their hearts renewed; not enough to be turned from darkness to light, but they must be turned from the power of Satan unto God. All who are turned from sin to God, are not only pardoned, but have a grant of a rich inheritance. The forgiveness of sins makes way for this. None can be happy who are not holy; and to be saints in heaven we must be first saints on earth. We are made holy, and saved by faith in Christ; by which we rely upon Christ as the Lord our Righteousness, and give up ourselves to him as the Lord our Ruler; by this we receive the remission of sins, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and eternal life. The cross of Christ was a stumbling-block to the Jews, and they were in a rage at Paul's preaching the fulfilling of the Old Testament predictions. Christ should be the first that should rise from the dead; the Head or principal One. Also, it was foretold by the prophets, that the Gentiles should be brought to the knowledge of God by the Messiah; and what in this could the Jews justly be displeased at? Thus the true convert can give a reason of his hope, and a good account of the change manifest in him. Yet for going about and calling on men thus to repent and to be converted, vast numbers have been blamed and persecuted.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

See this passage explained in the notes on Acts 9:5, etc.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

9-15. (See on [2119]Ac 9:1, &c.; and compare Ac 22:4, &c.)

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The foot is trod upon on earth, and the Head cries out out from heaven, as Acts 9:5.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And I said, who art thou, Lord? and he said,.... Or "the Lord said", as the Alexandrian copy, the Vulgate Latin, and Syriac versions read,

I am Jesus whom thou persecutest; the Syriac and Ethiopic versions read, "Jesus of Nazareth"; See Gill on Acts 9:5.

Geneva Study Bible

And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Expositor's Greek Testament

Acts 26:15. Evidently the following verses contain a summary of what in the other two accounts of the Conversion is spoken to Paul by Ananias, and revealed by the Lord in a vision, cf. Acts 9:15, Acts 22:14 (so Alford, Felten, Zöckler). This is far more satisfactory than to suppose that the two narratives in 9 and 22 are really dependent upon 26, the author having employed in them an oral tradition relating to Ananias, without being at all aware that by introducing such an account he was really contradicting a point upon which Paul lays special stress, viz., the fact that he had received his apostleship neither from man nor through man, Galatians 1:1 (so Wendt (1899), p. 189, and McGiffert, pp. 120 and 355). But in the first place nothing is said as to the Apostle receiving his Apostleship from Ananias; he receives recovery of sight from him, but his call to his Apostleship commences with his call before Damascus: “epocha apostolatus Paulini cum hoc ipso conversionis articulo incipit,” Bengel; and see specially Beyschlag, Studien und Kritiken, p. 220, 1864, on Galatians 1:15 (Witness of the Epistles, p. 379, 1892); and, further, the introduction and omission of Ananias are in themselves strong corroborations of the naturalness of the three accounts of the Conversion. Thus in chap. 22, Acts 26:12, cf. Acts 9:10, “non conveniebat in hunc locum uberior de An. narratio, Acts 9:10 ff., sed conveniebat præconium ejus, quod non est illic” (Blass); so too it was natural and important to emphasise before a Jewish audience the description of Ananias (in Acts 9:10 he is simply τις μαθητής) as εὐλαβὴς κατὰ τὸν κόμον, well reported of by all the Jews, whereas in 26 “tota persona Ananiæ sublata est, quippe quæ non esset apta apud hos auditores” (Blass). The three narratives agree in the main facts (see notes in comment., and Zöckler, Apostelgeschichte, 2nd edit., p. 216), and “the slight variations in the three accounts do not seem to be of any consequence,” Ramsay, Saint Paul, p. 379, cf. also Renan, Apostles, p. 13, E.T., Salmon, Introd., p. 121. Clemen, who agrees in the main with Wendt in regarding 26 as the original narrative, refers chap. 9 to his Redactor Antijudaicus, and chap. 22 to his Redactor Judaicus; he sees evidences of the hand of the former in 9, 10, 15, 17, and of the latter in Acts 22:12; Acts 22:14. If Acts 22:17 f., and the words in Acts 26:15, πρὸς πάντας ἀνθρώπους, do not fit in with this theory, they are ascribed by Clemen to the later Redactor Antijudaicus; but the latter expression πρὸς π. ἀνθ. is already contained in the meaning of the original source, Acts 26:17; Acts 26:20 a and c (20b belonging, according to Clemen, to the Redactor Judaicus). Space forbids any further examination of passages in the three narratives with regard to which the partition critics, Clemen and Jüngst, are again hopelessly at variance with each other, but cf. Jüngst, Apostelgeschichte, pp. 84, 87, 89, 94, and the strictures of Knabenbauer, Actus Apostolorum, p. 11 (1899). But it is strange to find that Clemen should be prepared to fall back upon the view of Baur, Paulus, Acts 2:13, that the narrative of Paul’s blindness was derived from the spiritual blindness referred to in Acts 26:17, and that therefore this narrative is evidently older than the other accounts in 9 and 22, which introduce a tragical blindness. As Wendt points out, there is no hint in the text that Paul’s blindness was symbolical, and there is nothing to suggest the circumstantial narratives relating to Ananias in the phrase Acts 26:17, which relates not to the Apostle’s own conversion, but to his power of converting others.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

15. Who art thou, Lord] The readiness with which “Lord,” an expression of allegiance, comes to the Apostle’s lips lends probability to the notion that God’s promptings had been working in his heart before, and that the mad rage against “the Way” was an attempt to stifle them.

Bengel's Gnomen

Acts 26:15. Ὁ δὲ, but He) Alex. has ὁ δὲ Κύριος: so also others, along with the Latin Vulg. This reading is derived from ch. Acts 9:5, where the narrative of Luke has it so.[144] But Paul, who speaks here, omits the word also in ch. Acts 22:8.[145] The omission is elegant. For it was not until afterwards, in continuation, that he heard who was the Lord that here addressed him.—ἐγὼ, I) Therefore He doth live, Festus (notwithstanding thy cavil, “One Jesus, which was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive”): ch. Acts 25:19. Paul often refers to the words of the speech which Jesus spake to Saul, as we shall presently observe. Comp. note on Acts 26:17-18.—Ἰησοῦς, Jesus) ὁ Ναζωραῖος, of Nazareth, is added in ch. Acts 22:8. Paul does not add it in this place, in order to avoid offending (to spare) Agrippa, that he may not seem to upbraid him with the impiety of the Herods against the Christ. Also in Acts 26:26, he speaks somewhat generally.—στῆθι ἐπὶ τοὺς πόδας σου) So the LXX., Ezekiel 2:1.

[144] ABCEe Vulg. both Syriac Versions, Memph. have the Κύριος. Rec. Text omits it without the sanction of any very old authority.—E. and T.

[145] To which its omission by transcribers here is probably due.—E. and T.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 15. - The Lord for he, A.V. and T.R. Acts 26:15