Acts 22:2

2 (And when they heard that he spoke to them in the Hebrew tongue, they kept the more silence.)

Acts 22:2 Meaning and Commentary

Acts 22:2

And when they heard that he spake in the Hebrew tongue to
them (See Gill on Acts 21:40).

they kept the more silence;
it being their mother tongue, and which they best understood; and which the captain and the Roman soldiers might not so well under stand; and chiefly because the Hellenistic language was not so agreeable to them, nor the Hellenistic Jews, who spoke the Greek language, and used the Greek version of the Bible; and such an one they took Paul to be, besides his being a Christian; wherefore when they heard him speak in the Hebrew tongue, it conciliated their minds more to him, at least engaged their attention the more to what he was about to say:

and he saith;
the Syriac and Ethiopic versions add, "to them", as follows.

Acts 22:2 In-Context

1 Men, brethren and fathers, hear ye the account which I now give unto you.

2 (And when they heard that he spoke to them in the Hebrew tongue, they kept the more silence.)

3 And he saith: I am a Jew, born at Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city, at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the truth of the law of the fathers, zealous for the law, as also all you are this day:

4 Who persecuted this way unto death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women,

5 As the high priest doth bear me witness and all the ancients. From whom also receiving letters to the brethren, I went to Damascus, that I might bring them bound from thence to Jerusalem to be punished.