But Saul increased the more in strength, and confounded the Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is very Christ.
But Saul increased the more in strength, and confounded the Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is very Christ, х ho (G3588) Christos (G5547).] - or more simply, 'that this is the Christ.' Had we only this record to guide us, we should certainly have supposed that Saul never left Damascus from the time that he entered it, blinded by the glory of the heavenly manifestation, until he came to Jerusalem (Acts 9:26). But we learn from the apostle himself (Galatians 1:7; Galatians 1:18) that, before going up to Jerusalem after his conversion, he "went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus," and that "then, after three years (from the time of his conversion) he went up to Jerusalem." That no allusion to this should be made in the Acts is not more remarkable than that this same Luke, in his Gospel, should write as if the Holy Family went straight from Jerusalem to Nazareth, immediately after the presentation of the infant Saviour in the temple; omitting all allusion to the flight into Egypt, the stay there, and the return thence, which constituted so important a feature in the early history of our Lord upon earth, and for which we are indebted to Matthew's Gospel.
The main difficulty is where, in the verses before us, this visit of Saul to Arabia should come in-whether before the Jews of Damascus sought to kill him (that is, between Acts 9:21-22), or after it (between Acts 9:25-26). The latter is the view of Bengel, Olshausen, and Baumgarten: the former that of Beza, Neander, Meyer, Humphry, Alford, Hackett, Webster and Wilkinson. That the apostle did not leave Damascus until he was driven from it for his life, might seem the most natural supposition; but that after this flight he should have again imperiled his life by returning to it, even after the lapse of some two years, is, though not impossible, scarcely probable; nor can one see any important object to be gained by his returning to it at all again. But if we suppose that it was after his first preaching of Christ in the synagogues that he withdrew for a lengthened period into Arabia, and that he "returned again unto Damascus" (Galatians 1:17) - that city, in the vicinity of which he had been so marvelously brought to Christ, and in which the first opening of his mouth as a preacher had produced such a sensation-we can readily conceive that his now matured ability to plead for Christ would, with his Master's presence, be attended with powerful results, so powerful as to bear down all opposing argument, 'confounding the Jews which dwelt at Damascus, by his proofs that Jesus was Christ;' but that, failing to convince, be only exasperated them, and soon found that his very success must cut short his stay there. This seems to us to be the most natural way of filling up the gap in our narrative, and may explain the special form of expression used in Acts 9:23.