Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Acts 9:11

"And the Lord [said] unto him, Arise, and go to the street which is called Straight, and inquire in the house of Judas for one named Saul, a man of Tarsus: for behold, he prayeth;" — Acts 9:11 (ASV)

Ananias was a Jew of Damascus and a believer in Jesus. Here (v.10) he is called a “disciple” and is presented as one who immediately recognizes the Lord Christ, who speaks to him in a vision, while in 22:12 he is called “a devout observer of the law and highly respected by all the Jews.” From his statement that he had heard reports about Saul’s persecutions in Jerusalem (v.13), it may be inferred that he was not one of the Hellenistic Christians who had formerly lived in Jerusalem but that he lived in Damascus. We are not told anything about how he became a Christian.

Damascus represented much more to Saul, the strict Pharisee, than another stop on his campaign of repression. It was the hub of a vast commercial network with far-flung lines of caravan trade reaching into north Syria, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Persia and Arabia. If the new “Way” of Christianity flourished in Damascus, it would quickly reach all these places. From the viewpoint of the Sanhedrin and of Saul, the archpersecutor, it had to be stopped in Damascus.

The city itself was a veritable oasis, situated in a plain watered by the Biblical rivers Abana and Pharpar.

Roman architecture overlaid the Hellenistic town plan with a great temple to Jupiter and a mile-long colonnaded street, the “Straight Street” of Ac 9:11. The city gates and a section of the town wall may still be seen today, as well as the lengthy bazaar that runs along the line of the ancient street.

The dominant political figure at the time of Paul’s escape from Damascus (2 Corinthians 11:32–33) was Aretas IV, king of the Nabateans (9 B. C.- A. D. 40), though normally the Decapolis cities were attached to the province of Syria and were thus under the influence of Rome. The Lord Jesus directed Ananias: “Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying.” Straight Street was an east-west street and is still one of the main thoroughfares of Damascus. Jesus’ words identified Saul as one who was praying. For Luke, his hero Paul was a man of prayer (cf. 16:25; 20:36; 22:17), as was Jesus in his earthly ministry (cf. Lk 3:21; 6:12; 9:18, 28; 11:1; 22:41). Probably in the religious experience of Paul, his devotion to prayer was the most important link between his life as a Pharisee and as a Christian. It takes no great imaginative power to appreciate the reasons for Ananias’s hesitation in going at once to meet Saul. Even the prophets of old had doubts about the appropriateness of what they understood to be God’s will, particularly when it seemed so contrary to what might be expected. But Luke lays emphasis on Ananias’s hesitancy, not just to humanize his narrative, but also to impress on his readers the magnitude of the change in Saul’s life and to highlight the heaven-ordained nature of his later Christian mission: (1) instead of a persecutor, he is Christ’s “chosen instrument”; (2) instead of a concern for Israel alone, his mission is “to carry my [Jesus’] name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel”; and (3) instead of prominence and glory, it is necessary for him “to suffer for my [Jesus’] name.” In highlighting these three features, Luke has, in effect, given a theological precis of all he will portray historically in chs. 13–28—a precis that also summarizes the self-consciousness of Paul himself as reflected in his own letters.