Commentaries:
Adam Clarke
Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter - The original text is very emphatic, , and points out how determinate Saul was to pursue and accomplish his fell purpose of totally destroying the infant Church of Christ. The mode of speech introduced above is very frequent in the Greek writers, who often express any vehement and hostile affection of the mind by the verb , to breathe, to pant; so Theocritus, Idyll. xxii. ver. 82:
, .
\ri720 They came into the assembly, breathing mutual slaughter.
Euripides has the same form, , breathing out fire, and slaughter, Iphig. in Taur.
And Aristophanes more fully, referring to all the preparations for war: -
,
, , ̔ .
\ri720 They breathed spears, and pikes, and helmets, and crests, and greaves, and the fury of redoubted heroes.
The figure is a favourite one with Homer: hence , the Abantes breathing strength. - Il. ii. 536. And how frequently he speaks of his fierce countrymen as, , the Greeks breathing strength, see Il. iii. 8; xi. 508; xxiv. 364, which phrase an old Scholiast interprets, being filled with strength and fury. St. Luke, who was master of the Greek tongue, chose such terms as best expressed a heart desperately and incessantly bent on accomplishing the destruction of the objects of its resentment. Such at this time was the heart of Saul of Tarsus; and it had already given full proof of its malignity, not only in the martyrdom of Stephen, but also in making havoc of the Church, and in forcibly entering every house, and dragging men and women, whom he suspected of Christianity, and committing them to prison. See Acts 8:3.
Went unto the high priest - As the high priest was chief in all matters of an ecclesiastical nature, and the present business was pretendedly religious, he was the proper person to apply to for letters by which this virulent persecutor might be accredited. The letters must necessarily be granted in the name of the whole Sanhedrin, of which Gamaliel, Saul' s master, was at that time the head; but the high priest was the proper organ through whom this business might be negotiated.
Other commentary entries containing this verse:
Acts 9:21
Acts 22:6-13
Acts 26:16
Galatians 1:1
Galatians 1:13
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