Jesus stopped Saul in the middle of his mission with a question that named him twice. Gill says the name is "doubled to denote vehemency and affection." Matthew Henry notes that it "called to him by name, to distinguish him from those that journeyed with him." The question pressed Saul to face what he was really doing. He thought he was punishing followers of "this way" (Acts 22:4-5), but the voice said "me." Barnes, on the parallel in Acts 9:4, explains, "Christ and his people are one," so "To persecute them, therefore, was to persecute him."

Saul did not yet know who was speaking, so he answered with a question of his own: "Who art thou, Lord?" (Acts 22:8). The voice replied, "I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest." Saul then asked, "What shall I do, LORD?" and was sent into Damascus, blinded by "the glory of that light" (Acts 22:10-11). Jesus' question ended Saul's journey as a persecutor and began his life as a witness (Acts 22:15).

The story is told three times in Acts: in Luke's own account (Acts 9:3-6), in Paul's words here before the Jerusalem crowd, and again by Paul before King Agrippa (Acts 26:13-15). Acts 26:14 adds that the voice spoke "in the Hebrew tongue" and said, "it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks." Here Paul is speaking in Hebrew himself, to a crowd that had just tried to kill him (Acts 21:31, 40).

Saul had been acting under official authority. He says "the high priest doth bear me witness, and all the estate of the elders," from whom he "received letters" to the brethren at Damascus (Acts 22:5). Gill sends readers from this verse back to his note on Acts 9:4 (Barnes covers the scene in his notes on Acts 9:3-7), and there Gill writes that "the union between Christ and his people is so close, that what is done to them is done to him."

This is a question God asks, and it reveals how closely Jesus binds Himself to His people. Saul never laid a hand on Jesus in the flesh. He bound "both men and women" (Acts 22:4). Yet Jesus says, "why persecutest thou me?" The suffering of the church is felt by its Lord.

The question also shows mercy. Jesus could have struck Saul down in judgment. Instead He called him by name and asked him why. Ananias would soon tell Saul that God had "chosen" him to be a witness "unto all men" (Acts 22:14-15). Paul told this story to a hostile crowd because it was the whole reason his life had changed.