Strengthen your faith in God's word

Luke writes that the men who journeyed with Saul “stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man” (Acts 9:7). Paul, telling the same event, says, “they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me” (Acts 22:9). One says they heard; the other, that they heard not.

To hear is both to perceive a sound and to understand what is said, in Greek as in English. The KJV gives akouō the second sense where the context requires it: “for no man understandeth him” (1 Corinthians 14:2) is, word for word, “no man heareth.” The men heard a voice; they did not hear, so as to understand, “the voice of him that spake to me.” Paul’s words are exact: it was the speaker’s words that were hidden from them, and only Saul was told what he must do (Acts 22:10).

The same thing happened when the Father answered the Son: “The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him” (John 12:29). All heard; only some knew it for a voice, and none are said to have understood it.

Gill gives a second answer: the voice they heard in Acts 9:7 was Saul’s, answering the Lord (“Who art thou, Lord?”), while they saw no one he spoke to. Either way, the two accounts don’t deny each other. That the men “stood” (9:7) and “were all fallen to the earth” (26:14) is no conflict either: the word means they were fixed to the spot, not that they were upright, or else they rose after they fell (Haley).