And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.
And desired of him letters - of authorization; showing that, under the Roman power at this time, the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem had jurisdiction over Jews resident in foreign parts.
To Damascus - the capital of Syria, and the great highway between, eastern and western Asia, about 130 miles Northeast of Jerusalem; the most ancient city, perhaps, in the world, and 'lying in the center of a verdant and inexhaustible paradise.' It abounded, as appears from Josephus ('Jewish Wars,' 2: 20, section 2), both with Jews-and accordingly this verse speaks of more synagogues than one in it-and with Gentile proselytes to the Jewish faith. The Gospel had penetrated there; and Saul, flushed with past successes, undertakes to crush it out.
That if he found - as the grammatical form of the expression х ean (G1437) heuree (G2147)] implies, was to be expected.
Any of this way, х tees (G3588) hodou (G3598)] - literally, 'any of the way;' a remarkable abbreviation to express the Christian Faith, one which evidently had its rise among the Christians themselves, and probably the very earliest-occuring only in this book, but there four times (here, and in Acts 19:9; Acts 19:23; Acts 24:22). It seems intended to denote that what to the earliest Christians was felt to be most characteristic in the Gospel, was not so much the object to which it conducted those that embraced it, as the way of reaching it, through a crucified Saviour.
Whether they were men or women. Thrice are women specified as objects of Saul's cruelty, and as an aggravated feature of it (Acts 8:3; Acts 22:4; and here).
He might bring them bound unto Jerusalem. It may be that some who where won to Christ during the first triumphs of the Gospel left Jerusalem thereafter, and, going as far as Damascus, felt constrained to "speak the things which they had seen and heard." Be this as it may, there is every reason to believe that some of those "who were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen," traveled as far as Damascus, and doubtless there "preached the word," not without success.