Galatians 1:17 Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus. After a great change of conviction, nature, as well as something higher than nature, tells us that a long period of retirement and silence is fitting, if not necessary. The three days in the house of Judas were not enough in which to sound the heights and depths of newly recognized truth, or the strength and weakness of the soul which was to own and to proclaim it. They were to be followed by three years passed in the desert of Arabia. It is, indeed, thought that this retirement was dictated by a wish to preach the gospel to the wandering Bedouin tribes, or to the settled Arabs at Petrea. And there is no doubt that "Arabia" among the ancients was a very wide and inclusive geographical term. It might have included Damascus itself; it might have even taken in regions far to the north, extending to the very borders of Cilicia. But these are less usual uses of the word; nor can it be supposed that emphasis would have been laid on this retirement if all that had been meant was a journey of a few miles into the desert beyond the walls of Damascus. Something may be said for a retreat to Petra, the ancient capital of Edom, which had its own synagogue in Jerusalem; but the probabilities are that, under the profound and awful inspirations of the hour, Paul sought to tread in the very footsteps of Moses and Elijah at the base of Sinai. The spiritual attractions of such a course must have been, to a man of his character and antecedents, not less than overwhelming. There, where the Jewish law had been given, he wag led to ask what it really meant — what were its sanctions, what its obligations, what the limit of its moral capacity, what the criterion of its weakness. There he must have felt the inspiration of a life like Elijah's, the great representative of a persecuted religious minority, the preacher of an unpopular truth against vulgar but intolerant error. Would not the still small voice which had there spoken to the prophet — or rather, did it not — again and again speak to him? They were precious years, depend upon it, for a man whose later life was to be passed, wholly passed, in action. (Canon Liddon.) Parallel Verses KJV: Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus. |
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