The Hebrew tongue - See the notes on Acts 21:40.

When they heard that he spake in the Hebrew tongue - He had probably been traduced by the Jews of Asia as a mere Gentile, distinguished only by his virulence against the Jewish religion; which virulence proceeded from his malice and ignorance.

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.

Kept - silence (παρέσχον ἡσυχίαν)

Lit., gave quiet.

(And when they heard that he spake in the Hebrew tongue to them, they kept the more silence: and he saith,)

22:2 Spake in the Hebrew tongue to them. The tongue called the Hebrew, a dialect of the ancient Hebrew, and distinguished from it by the name Aramaic. It was the common language of Judea in the time of Christ. It would be understood by all Paul's Jewish hearers, while many could not understand Greek.

2. when they heard . the Hebrew tongue-(See on [2090]Ac 21:40).

they kept the more silence-They could have understood him in Greek, and doubtless fully expected the renegade to address them in that language, but the sound of their holy mother tongue awed them into deeper silence.

22:1-11 The apostle addressed the enraged multitude, in the customary style of respect and good-will. Paul relates the history of his early life very particularly; he notices that his conversion was wholly the act of God. Condemned sinners are struck blind by the power of darkness, and it is a lasting blindness, like that of the unbelieving Jews. Convinced sinners are struck blind as Paul was, not by darkness, but by light. They are for a time brought to be at a loss within themselves, but it is in order to their being enlightened. A simple relation of the Lord's dealings with us, in bringing us, from opposing, to profess and promote his gospel, when delivered in a right spirit and manner, will sometimes make more impression that laboured speeches, even though it amounts not to the full proof of the truth, such as was shown in the change wrought in the apostle.