Note 1 at Ac 9:10: "Ananias" is the Greek form of the Hebrew "Hananiah." This Hebrew name, "CHANANYAH," means "Jah has favored" (Strong's Concordance). This Ananias is only mentioned in Scripture in association with Saul's conversion (this passage and Ac 22:12-16), and this was his most important contribution to the history of the Gospel.

Ananias was "a devout man according to the law, having a good report of all the Jews which dwelt there" (Ac 22:12). This made him an appropriate messenger for a skeptical Saul who had been used to criticizing Christians, probably over their lack of strict adherence to the Jewish Law. There was nothing for Saul to find fault with in Ananias. Ananias also showed a maturity and great faith in the Lord to go to Saul and identify himself as a Christian, knowing that Saul had come to Damascus for the express purpose of persecuting Christians.

One of the great qualities of Ananias was that when the Lord called for him, he was there. He was evidently a man who spent time waiting in the presence of the Lord. There is no other mention in Scripture that the Lord appeared to Ananias or used him in a similar fashion with others. That is certainly possible, but it is just as possible that this was the only time the Lord ever appeared to him in a vision and gave him such an assignment. Tradition holds that Ananias was the first bishop of Damascus and that he suffered martyrdom.

Miraculous manifestations, such as Ananias had here, are not everyday occurrences. Some of the mightiest people of God in the Bible went years between direct miraculous encounters with God, yet the thing that made them mighty was that they were constantly in communion with God during those times when there were no blinding revelations or dramatic instructions. Many have missed being used of God as Ananias was because they were so impatient for the miraculous that they failed to just be there in the presence of God day by day.

Note 2 at Ac 9:10: Visions are supernatural presentations of visual (and many times audible) messages from God to the minds of people. If people are asleep when they happen, then they are dreams, or what the Bible calls night visions (Ge 46:2, Job 33:15, Da 2:19, and Ac 18:9), and they are seen not by their physical eyes but are mental images.

When people are awake and see visions, it is the Lord showing them something in their mind's eye, even though to the people they may be so real that they thought they actually saw with their physical eyes. In the case of Ezekiel (Eze 8-11), others were present when he had this vision (Eze 8:1), but they were not transported "in the visions of God" to Jerusalem (Eze 8:3) as he was. Ezekiel's body stayed put while he experienced being transported to Jerusalem in his mind. In Ac 12:9, Peter didn't think that what he was experiencing was real but rather a vision. This leads us to conclude that visions are not physical realities but spiritual happenings.

Trances and visions are the same things according to Nu 24:4, 16; Ac 10:10, and 19. In trances or visions, people's physical eyes are open and usually fixed in a stare, but they are not receiving the normal physical images. Instead they receive direct supernatural images from God.

The transfiguration of Jesus was called a vision (Mt 17:9) and is therefore possibly something that didn't suddenly happen physically. Instead, the disciples' spiritual eyes were opened to glimpse the glory of Jesus that was always there, but they had been blinded to it when looking through their physical eyes. This would be the same thing that happened to Elisha's servant when the Lord opened his spiritual eyes to see the horses and chariots of fire surrounding them (2Ki 6:17).

The Scriptures clearly state that Abraham (Ge 15:1), Jacob (Ge 46:2), Balaam (Nu 24:4 and 16), Samuel (1Sa 3:15), Nathan (2Sa 7:17 and 1Ch 17:15), Isaiah (Isa 1:1), Ezekiel (Eze 1:1, 7:13, 8:3, and 11:24), Daniel (Da 2:19, 8:1-2, and 9:21-24), Nebuchadnezzar (Da 2:28), Zacharias (Lu 1:22), Peter (Ac 10:10, 19), John (Re 9:17), Ananias (here), Cornelius (Ac 10:3), and Paul (Ac 16:9-10, 18:9; and 2Co 12:1) all had visions.

Although the word "vision" is not mentioned, the criteria of a vision was met with Elisha's servant (2Ki 6:17) and Micaiah (1Ki 22:19-22). As mentioned before, dreams are visions (see note 3 at Mt 1:20).