17. went I up--Some of the oldest manuscripts read, "went away."
      to Jerusalem--the seat of the apostles.
      into Arabia--This journey (not recorded in Acts) was during the whole period of his stay at Damascus, called by Luke (Ac 9:23), "many [Greek, a considerable number of] days." It is curiously confirmatory of the legitimacy of taking "many days" to stand for "three years," that the same phrase exactly occurs in the same sense in 1Ki 2:38, 39. This was a country of the Gentiles; here doubtless he preached as he did before and after (Ac 9:20, 22) at Damascus: thus he shows the independence of his apostolic commission. He also here had that comparative retirement needed, after the first fervor of his conversion, to prepare him for the great work before him. Compare Moses (Ac 7:29, 30). His familiarity with the scene of the giving of the law, and the meditations and revelations which he had there, appear in Ga 4:24, 25; Heb 12:18. See on Ga 1:12. The Lord from heaven communed with him, as He on earth in the days of His flesh communed with the other apostles.
      returned--Greek "returned back again."

JFB.