Acts 9:23 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

And after—many days— After an interval of about three years; during which period Saul went into Arabia, and preached the gospel there. See Galatians 1:17-18. Though St. Luke has not given us a particular account of this part of St. Paul's travels, yet it appears sufficiently from the expression before us that he was not ignorant of it. St. Paul himself has led us to conclude, that the Jews at Damascus did not plot his death till after he returned thither from Arabia, just before he went up to Jerusalem. As St. Paul's abode at Damascus, both upon his conversion and at his return from Arabia, appears to have been very short, he must, according to his own account, have spent almost three years in Arabia. His going so soon from Damascus, and preaching the gospel so long in a remote country, where there were no Christians before his coming, is a proof, as he himself very justly alleges, that he receivednot the knowledge of the gospel doctrine from any other of the apostles or Christians, but immediately from our Lord Jesus Christ, or by the illumination of the Spirit. Returning from Arabia, he came again to Damascus, and going into one of the synagogues there, he preached the Christian doctrine to the Jews, as he had done before. But they, not content with barely rejecting his doctrine, consulted how they might take away his life; for they looked upon him as a grand apostate, whose conversion greatly strengthened the interests of Christianity. But a stronger proof can scarce be produced of the malignity of these people: that when so great a persecutor was in so wonderful a manner converted to Christianity, they should be so far from following his example, as to attempt his life.