Charles Ellicott Commentary Galatians 1:17

"neither went I up to Jerusalem to them that were apostles before me: but I went away into Arabia; and again I returned unto Damascus." — Galatians 1:17 (ASV)

Went I up.—The usual phrase is “to go up to Jerusalem,” from the fact that Jerusalem stood on high ground and was approached from all sides by an ascent. Here, however, the reading is doubtful between “went up” and “went away,” each of which is supported by nearly equally good authority. In such a close balance of authorities, the less common phrase is perhaps more likely to have been the original reading, though there is an almost equal probability that it may have slipped in from the second “went” (really the same word, “went away”), a little further on in the verse.

To Arabia.—The question of what part of Arabia St. Paul withdrew to is purely speculative. There is nothing in the context to indicate this decisively. The boundary of Arabia at this period was not precisely defined. According to some writers, it even included Damascus itself. It is therefore possible that “Arabia” may have referred to the desert near the city.

This would be the most obvious assumption. But, on the other hand, there would be a certain appropriateness if we could imagine, as we are certainly permitted to do, that the location of his stay may have been the region of Mount Sinai itself. The place where the Law was first given may have witnessed its renewal in his mind—not destroyed, but fulfilled in the new law of love. Like Moses, and like Elijah, the great minister of the new dispensation may have received strength for his work here. And if this was the case, we can more readily understand the typological allusion to Mount Sinai later in the Epistle. Such arguments may have some slight weight, but the actual location must remain uncertain.

As to the time of the Apostle’s withdrawal, and its duration, little can be said beyond the fact that it must have occurred within the three years that passed between his conversion and his first visit to Jerusalem. When we compare this account with the narrative in Acts, it is not clear how they are to be reconciled.

St. Paul says that after his conversion, immediately (eutheôs) he conferred not with flesh and blood . . . but went unto Arabia. St. Luke says, after recording the same event, Then was Saul certain days with the disciples which were at Damascus. And straightway (eutheos) he preached Christ (or, according to a more correct reading, Jesus) in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God (Acts 9:19–20). There does not seem to be room here to insert the retreat into Arabia.

It would indeed come in more naturally among the many days, mentioned in a later verse, which ended with the plot of the Jews against the Apostle’s life and his final escape from Damascus. There would still, however, be some apparent conflict between conferring not with flesh and blood and “spending certain days with the disciples” at Damascus. The discrepancy is only what we might expect to find between two perfectly independent narratives, one of which was compiled from secondary sources and is, moreover, very brief and summary in form.

We are obliged, by the Apostle’s own words, to believe that his withdrawal into Arabia took place immediately after his conversion. Since it would not take a very long time to attract attention or arouse the animosity of the Jews at Damascus, it seems natural to suppose that this period of silent seclusion occupied the greater part of the whole three-year period.

The patristic commentators, for the most part, seem to have held the belief that the purpose of his visit to Arabia was to preach to the heathen there; but the whole context of the Epistle shows that it was rather for solitary meditation and communion with God.

Damascus.—We gather from 2 Corinthians 11:32 that Damascus was at this time in the possession of, or at least in some manner under the rule of, Aretas, the Arabian king. How this could have been is an obscure and difficult question (see Note on that passage). It may have been seized by him and held for a time during his war with Herod Antipas and the Romans at the end of the reign of Tiberius, in A.D. 36–37. Or it may possibly have been placed in his hands by Caligula upon the disgrace of his rival, Antipas. Or the ethnarch under Aretas the king may have been an officer subordinate to the Romans and charged with a kind of consulship over the Arabians in Damascus.

The first theory does not seem very probable when facing a power as strong as Rome. The second is a pure hypothesis, with no support from any contemporary writer. And the third hardly seems to satisfy the conditions of the problem. In any case, the most probable date for these events would be soon after the death of Tiberius in A.D. 37.