(4)That he was caught up into paradise. — The stress laid on this second vision hinders us from thinking of it as identical with the former, either in time or in object-matter. Paradise (see Note on Luke 23:43) was emphatically the dwelling-place of the souls of the righteous, the reproduction in the unseen world of the lost beauty of the Garden of Eden — the “paradise of joy,” as the LXX. in Genesis 2:15 translates the name. There, flowing about the throne of God, was the fountain of the water of life, and the tree of life growing on its banks (Revelation 2:7; Revelation 22:1-2). Speculations on the question whether St. Paul thought of it as nearer or farther from earth than the third heaven are obviously idle and profitless. The nearest approach which we can make to an adequate distinction between the two visions is that the first revealed to his gaze the glory of the Throne of God, with angels and archangels round it, and seraphim and cherubim, — a vision like that of Moses (Exodus 24:10), and Isaiah (Isaiah 6:1-3), and Ezekiel (Ezekiel 1:4-28), and St. John (Revelation 4:2-11) — thoughts like those of Hooker’s death-bed (Walton’s Life) — while the latter brought before his spirit the peace and rest ineffable, even in their intermediate and therefore imperfect state, of the souls who had fallen asleep in Christ and were waiting for their resurrection.
Unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. — The first two words present the tone of a paradox — speech unspeakable, or utterances unutterable. The verb in the second clause hovers between the text, “it is not lawful” and “it is not possible.” The hymns which St. John records in Revelation 4:8-9; Revelation 5:12-14; Revelation 7:12; Revelation 15:3, may give us some faint approach to what dwelt in St. Paul’s memory and yet could not be reproduced. Sounds of ineffable sweetness, bursts of praise and adoration, hallelujahs like the sound of many waters, voices low and sweet as those of children, whispers which were scarcely distinguishable from silence and yet thrilled the soul with a rapturous joy — this we may, perhaps, think of as underlying St. Paul’s language. In the mystic ecstatic utterances of the Tongues — themselves needing an interpreter, and helping little to build up those who heard them, though they raised the life of those who spoke with them to a higher level — we may, perhaps, trace some earthly echoes of that heavenly music. (See Notes on Acts 2:4; 1 Corinthians 14:2.)