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Did they hear the Voice, or not?
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Acts 9:7 X Acts 22:9
In the NKJV, Acts 9:7 reads like this: “And the men who journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice but seeing no one.” And Acts 22:9 reads like this: “And those who were with me indeed saw the light and were afraid, but they did not hear the voice of him who spoke to me.” Comparing the two accounts, we seem to have a discrepancy: did they hear the Voice, or didn't they? Comparing the verses in the Greek Text, we discover that the verb, ‘hear’, and the noun, ‘voice’, are the same in both. Looking more closely, however, we notice that in 9:7 the noun is in the Genitive case, while in 22:9 it is in the Accusative. We have here a subtlety of Greek grammar: in the Genitive ‘voice’ refers to sound, while in the Accusative it refers to meaning, to the words. Saul's companions heard the Voice, but were not allowed to understand the words—only Saul understood the words. A similar thing happened in John 12:28-29; the people heard the sound (sufficiently impressive that they called it thunder), but only Jesus understood the words.

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© 2016 Wilbur N. Pickering, ThM, PhD