Verse Lens · Expanded explanation
Acts 26:14 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 14. 14And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
Records the fall and Hebrew-language question about persecution and resisting goads.
Read It With
- Acts 26:9–26:18
Acts 26:14 records the fall and Hebrew-language question about persecution and resisting goads; within Acts 26:9–26:18, the controlling movement is that Paul admits imprisoning saints, voting for deaths, punishing them in synagogues, and pursuing them abroad; he then recounts the heavenly confrontation and commission to open eyes and carry light among Israel and Gentiles.
Why This Verse Appears Here
Records the fall and Hebrew-language question about persecution and resisting goads. This precise contribution belongs inside “Paul confesses persecution and retells his commission” because Paul admits imprisoning saints, voting for deaths, punishing them in synagogues, and pursuing them abroad; he then recounts the heavenly confrontation and commission to open eyes and carry light among Israel and Gentiles.
Follow the Context
- Paul admits imprisoning saints, voting for deaths, punishing them in synagogues, and pursuing them abroad; he then recounts the heavenly confrontation and commission to open eyes and carry light among Israel and Gentiles.
- The unit distinguishes narrated event, participant speech, the narrator's framing, material uncertainty, and the ethical boundary: The testimony does not glamorize violence, make a persecutor's past a badge, blame victims, or authorize coercive mission and colonial imagery.
What This Verse Is Not Saying
The testimony does not glamorize violence, make a persecutor's past a badge, blame victims, or authorize coercive mission and colonial imagery.
What Remains True
Because Acts 26:14 records the fall and Hebrew-language question about persecution and resisting goads, faithful witness must preserve the verse's speaker, narrated setting, people affected, and the full movement of Acts 26:9–26:18 before drawing an enduring claim.
How It Can Shape Life
- For Acts 26:14, first identify this verse role—records the fall and Hebrew-language question about persecution and resisting goads; then explain the contextual meaning in Acts 26:9–26:18; preserve the proportionate truth about accountable witness; finally apply this boundary: The testimony does not glamorize violence, make a persecutor's past a badge, blame victims, or authorize coercive mission and colonial imagery.
Teach It Back
Explain Acts 26:14's precise role in Acts 26:9–26:18. Distinguish narrator and speaker, include the first Jewish, Gentile, household, disabled, enslaved, imprisoned, or Roman horizon as relevant, disclose the material uncertainty, and name one conclusion this verse does not authorize.
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Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Acts 26:9–26:18 — Paul confesses persecution and retells his commissionSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? probable
Where care is needed
This version expands the commission and places proverbial language in Jesus' speech; Acts' three accounts are complementary literary retellings, not verbatim identity.
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact displayed KJV wording, order, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and unit coverage.
Exact location: Acts 26:9–26:18, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived repository corpus
Open source ↗Greek textual evidence
The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition
Michael W. Holmes, editor; Society of Biblical Literature and Logos
Society of Biblical Literature and Logos Bible Software, 2010
Supports: Greek wording and punctuation control, without pretending one edition is a complete apparatus.
Exact location: SBLGNT official text, Acts 26:9-26:18
Open the Acts Greek text file ↗Lexical and grammatical evidence
STEP Bible Data
Tyndale House Cambridge
Tyndale House Cambridge, repository snapshot verified 2026
Supports: Morphology and lexical cross-check for words explicitly discussed in this unit.
Exact location: STEP Bible Data, TAGNT rows for Acts 26:9-26:18
Open source ↗open translation and translator notes
NET Bible First Edition Notes: Acts
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: Verse-attached textual, translation, language, geography, chronology, and historical notes actually printed for the unit.
Exact location: NET Bible First Edition Acts PDF, printed pp. 2104-2205, exact tn/tc/sn entries attached to 26:9–26:18
Open source ↗open university bible study course
Acts of the Apostles Course and Study Guides
Yale Divinity School faculty
Yale Bible Study, 2019
Supports: Introductory critical orientation to the unit's place in Luke-Acts, with contested judgments retained as interpretations.
Exact location: Yale Bible Study Acts course, course unit 'The Gospel, the Romans, the Jews,' Acts 24-28 study guide
Open source ↗open confessional commentary
The Acts of the Apostles
Alan J. Thompson
The Gospel Coalition, 2023
Supports: One complete confessional commentary reading, independently checked against the text and critical controls.
Exact location: Thompson, online Acts commentary, heading and paragraphs explicitly covering Acts 26:9–26:18
Open source ↗peer reviewed article abstract and metadata
The Jewishness of Luke-Acts: How Recent Scholarship Has Challenged the View that Luke-Acts Is Pro-Gentile and Anti-Jewish
Joshua Paul Smith
The Journal of Theological Studies 72.2, 2021
Supports: Abstract-supported control for Jewish continuity and Gentile inclusion in Acts 26:9–26:18, not a settlement of every conflict scene.
Exact location: Smith, JTS 72.2 (2021), pp. 738-765, official abstract and bibliographic record
Open source ↗primary manuscript transcription
Codex Bezae: Electronic Transcription of Acts
International Greek New Testament Project
Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing, University of Birmingham, 2012 transcription; current online edition
Supports: Direct manuscript evidence only where a material Western reading is named; Bezae is not treated as the Western text as a whole.
Exact location: IGNTP Codex Bezae Acts transcription, verse-addressable witness at 26:9–26:18, checked with SBLGNT and the NET tc note
Open source ↗