Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 18:9

"And the Lord said unto Paul in the night by a vision, Be not afraid, but speak and hold not thy peace:" — Acts 18:9 (ASV)

Then spoke the Lord to Paul.—We note the recurrence of these visions at each great crisis of the Apostle’s life. He had seen the Lord at his conversion (Acts 9:4–6); he had heard the same voice and seen the same form in his trance in the Temple at Jerusalem (Acts 22:17).

Now he saw and heard them once more. In visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, he passed from the strife of tongues into the presence of the Divine Friend.

The words Be not afraid imply that he too was subject to fear and depression, and felt keenly the trial of seeming failure and comparative isolation. His converts came chiefly from the slave or freed-man class, and those of a culture like his own, whether Greeks or Jews, were slow to accept his preaching (1 Corinthians 1:26–27). And then, too, he carried, as it were, his life in his hands. The reviling of the Jews might any hour burst into furious violence or deliberate plots of assassination.

No wonder that he needed the gracious words, Be not afraid. The temptation of such a moment of human weakness was to fall back, when words seem fruitless, into the safety of silence, and therefore the command followed, Speak, and hold not thy peace. We are reminded of the like passing mood of discouragement in one great crisis of Elijah’s life (1 Kings 19:4–14), and perhaps even more of its frequent recurrence in Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:6–8; Jeremiah 15:15–21).