And he said, who art thou, Lord?
&c.] For he knew not whether it was God, or an angel, or who
it was that spake to him; he knew not Christ by his form or
voice, as Stephen did, when he saw him standing at the right hand
of God; he was in a state of ignorance, and knew neither the
person, nor voice of Christ, and yet his heart was so far
softened and wrought upon, that he was desirous of knowing who he
was;
and the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom thou
persecutest.
The Alexandrian copy, and the Syriac and Ethiopic versions, "read
Jesus of Nazareth"; and one of Beza's copies, and another of
Stephens', as in ( Acts 22:8 ) whose name
thou art doing many things against, and whose people thou art
destroying:
it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks;
or "to resist me", as the Arabic version renders it; and which is
the sense of the phrase; it is a proverbial expression, taken
from beasts that are goaded, who kick against the goads or
pricks, and hurt themselves the more thereby; and Christ uses it,
suggesting hereby, that should Saul go on to persecute him and
his people, to oppose his Gospel, and the strong evidence of it,
in doctrine and miracles, and notwithstanding the present
remonstrances made in such an extraordinary manner; he would find
himself in the issue greatly hurt by it, and could not rationally
expect to succeed against so powerful a person. This clause in
the Syriac version is placed at the end of the fourth verse.