Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Acts 22:2

"And when they heard that he spake unto them in the Hebrew language, they were the more quiet: and he saith," — Acts 22:2 (ASV)

Paul opens his defense with the formal Jewish address “Men, brothers” (cf. 7:2). Many commentators have objected that this speech does not fit the occasion, for it makes no mention of the people’s charge that Paul had defiled the temple by taking Trophimus, a Gentile, into its inner courts (cf. 21:28b–29). In reality, however, this speech deals eloquently with the major charge against him—that of being a Jewish apostate (cf. 21:28a)—by setting in a Jewish context all that had happened in his Christian life and by insisting that what others might consider apostasy really came to him as a revelation from heaven. Indeed, the speech parallels much of what Luke has already given us about Paul’s conversion in 9:1–19 and what he will give us again in 26:2–23. Such repetition impresses something of exceptional importance indelibly on his readers’ minds (cf. introductory comment on 9:1–30). Yet the variations in each of these three accounts correspond to their respective contexts and purposes.