In Damascus the governor under Aretas the king guarded the city of Damascus with a garrison, desirous to apprehend me:
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Ambrosiaster
AD 400
The governor of Damascus, seeing that the Jews had set a trap for the apostle, wanted to bring this wicked scheme to pass by a wrongful use of his power. He intended to capture Paul both in order to keep the Jews happy and to demonstrate that he was doing his job properly. This occurred at the very beginning of Paul’s ministry. Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.
The governor under Aretas the king. This satrap of King Aretas was, says Theophylact, the father-in-law of Herod. Josephus says that Herod Antipas, who put to death John the Baptist, married the daughter of Aretas.
Likewise also, the renowned Paul having been oftentimes delivered up and brought in peril of death, having endured many evils, and making his boast in his numerous persecutions and afflictions, in the same city was also himself beheaded; who, in the things in which he gloried, in these also ended his life; and at Damascus he was let down by night in a basket by the wall, and escaped the hands
