A certain disciple at Damascus, named Ananias. — In Acts 22:12 St. Paul speaks of him as a “devout man” (the same word as in Acts 2:5; Acts 8:2) “according to the law,” well reported of by all the Jews who dwelt at Damascus. The name was so common that any identification must be in some measure uncertain, but the account which Josephus gives (Ant. xx. 2, § 4) of the conversion of Izates, King of Adiabene, to the faith of Israel by a Jewish merchant who bore the name of Ananias, and who taught that it was enough for men to worship the God of Israel without being circumcised, suggests, as probable, the thought that he too was a preacher of the gospel of Christ as St. Paul preached it. The arrival of another teacher, Eleazar of Galilee, who worked on the young king’s fears and compelled him to be circumcised, presents a striking parallel to the manner in which the Judaisers followed on the track of St. Paul in Galatia and elsewhere (Galatians 2:4; Galatians 4:17). The narrative here leaves it uncertain whether this Ananias had been a disciple during our Lord’s ministry or had been converted since the Day of Pentecost. In relation to St. Paul the name had a two-fold significance. He had come from one Annas, or Ananias, the Sadducean high priest, he was to be received by another. The meaning of the name — identical with that of Jochanan, Joannes, John, “the Lord is gracious” — was itself an omen and prophecy of pardon.
To him said the Lord in a vision. — It is clear from Acts 9:16 that the writer is speaking of the Lord Jesus. The ready acceptance of the command seems to imply either personal discipleship or previous visions of the same nature.