STRAIGHT

(Street).

A street in Damascus, Syria. (Acts 9:10, 11) During the Roman period, it was a major thoroughfare approximately one mile (c. 1.6 kilometers) long and about 100 feet (c. 30.5 meters) wide. Then divided by colonnades into three sections, its center lane was used by pedestrians and the two outside lanes were for mounted and vehicular traffic moving in opposite directions. Still bearing an Arabic equivalent of the former name, but no longer completely straight, it runs W from the city’s East Gate. On this ancient street, at the house of a man named Judas, Saul of Tarsus stayed for a time after the glorified Jesus Christ appeared to him. In a vision, Jesus directed the disciple Ananias to this home on “the street called Straight” to restore Saul’s sight.—Acts 9:3-12, 17-19.