And he was three days without sight, and neither did eat nor drink.
And he was three days without sight, and neither did eat nor drink - that is, according to the Hebrew mode of computation, he took no food during the remainder of that day, the entire day following, and so much of the subsequent day as elapsed before the visit Ananias. Such a period of entire abstinence from food, in that state of mental absorption and revolution into which he had been so suddenly thrown, is in perfect harmony with known laws and numerous facts. But what three days must those have been! 'Only one other space of three days' duration can be mentioned of equal importance in the history of the world' (as Howson well observes). Since Jesus had been revealed not only to his eyes, but to his soul (see the notes at Galatians 1:15-16), the double conviction must have immediately flashed upon him, that his whole reading of the Old Testament hitherto had been wrong, and that the system of legal righteousness in which he had, up to that moment, rested and prided himself was false and fatal.
What materials these for spiritual exercise during those three days of total darkness, fasting, and solitude! On the one hand, what self-condemnation, what anguish, what death of legal hope, what difficulty in believing that in such a case there could be hope at all; on the other hand, what heart-breaking admiration of the grace that had "pulled him out of the fire," what resistless conviction that there must be a purpose of love in it, and what tender expectation of being yet honoured, as a chosen vessel, to declare what the Lord had done for his soul, and spread abroad the savour of that Name which he had so wickedly, though ignorantly, sought to destroy-must have struggled in his breast during those memorable days! Is it too much to say that all that profound insight into the old Testament, that comprehensive grasp of the principles of the divine economy, that penetrating spirituality, that vivid apprehension of man's lost state, and those glowing views of the perfection and glory of the divine remedy; that beautiful ideal of the loftiness and the lowliness of the Christian character, that large philanthropy and burning zeal to spend, and be spent, through all his future life, for Christ, which distinguish the writings of this chiefest of the apostles and greatest of men-were all quickened into life during these three successive days! [The Greek reader will observe in the phrase mee (G3361) blepoon (G991), the subjective mee (G3361) expressive of the vain effort to see; while in the following phrase, ouk (G3756) efagen (G5315), the objective ouk (G3756) expresses the simple fact that he took no food. See Jelf, 739; Winer, 55. 5.]
Through the instrumentality of Ananias, Saul's sight is restored-He is Baptized, and is filled with the Holy Spirit-After continuing with the disciples at Damascus for some time, he begins to preach, to the astonishment of all (9:10-21)