For you have heard of my manner of life in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it:
All Commentaries on Galatians 1:13 Go To Galatians 1
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
I persecuted the Church of God and wasted it. That Isaiah , I did my best to storm it and overturn it. Cf. Psalm 129:1-2, The word translated waste here comes, as some think, from a word denoting the burning of a town by an enemy, or else, as Erasmus held, from one denoting the surrounding of it. Either way Paul"s meaning is clear. He says this to remove from himself all suspicion of hatred of the Jews. Though they inveigh against me, he says, as their foe, yet my past life is sufficient answer. For I am myself a Jew, and fought more vigorously for Judaism than they, before God, by His call, changed my heart and enlightened it by faith in Christ.
