He fell into a trance. — St. Luke characteristically uses, as in Acts 11:5; Acts 22:17, the technical term ekstasis (whence our English ecstasy) for the state which thus supervened. It is obvious that it might in part be the natural consequence of the protracted fast, and the intense prayer, possibly also of exposure under such conditions to the noontide sun. The state was one in which the normal action of the senses was suspended, like that of Balaam in Numbers 24:4, or that which St. Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 12:3, “whether in the body or out of the body” he cannot tell, and, as such, it was, in this instance, made the channel for a revelation of the Divine Will conveyed in symbols which were adapted to the conditions out of which it rose.
Related Commentaries of Acts 10:10
Acts 10:10
10 And he became very hungry, and would have eaten: but while they made ready, he fell into a trance,