οἱ δὲ νδρες οἱ συνοδεύοντες αὐτῷ εἱστήκεισαν ἐνεοί, ἀκούοντες μὲν τῆς φωνῆς μηδένα δὲ θεωροῦντες.
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The men who traveled with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one.
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There seems to be a contradiction between this account of Paul’s conversion and his account of it in Acts 22, for there he says, “those who were with me. . . did not hear the voice. . .” However, in Acts 22:9 the verb ἀκούω takes an accusative direct object. On these two passages, Robertson states: “. . . it is perfectly proper to appeal to the distinction in the cases in the apparent contradiction between ἀκούοντες μὲν τῆς φωνῆς (Ac. 9:7) and τὴν δὲ φωνὴν οὐκ ἤκουσαν (22:9). The accusative case (case of extent) accents the intellectual apprehension of the sound, while the genitive (specifying case) calls attention to the sound of the voice without accenting the sense. The word ἀκούω itself has two senses which fall in well with this case-distinction, one ‘to hear,’ the other ‘to understand’.”(Robertson, Grammar, 506.)
The NIV seems to follow this line of reasoning: Acts 9:7 reads “they heard the sound but did not see anyone”; 22:9 has “my companions saw the light, but did not understand the voice.” The field of meaning for both ἀκούω (hear, understand) and φωνή (sound, voice), coupled with the change in cases (gen., acc.), can be appealed to to harmonize these two accounts.
On the other hand, it is doubtful that this is where the difference lay between the two cases used with ἀκούω in Hellenistic Greek: the NT (including the more literary writers) is filled with examples of ἀκούω + genitive indicating understanding (Matt 2:9; John 5:25; 18:37; Acts 3:23; 11:7; Rev 3:20; 6:3, 5;(Rev 6:7 finds a parallel with the acc.!) 8:13; 11:12; 14:13; 16:1, 5, 7; 21:3) as well as instances of ἀκούω + accusative where little or no comprehension takes place (In some of these examples, the hearing is indirect (e.g., hearing about wars [Mark 13:7 and parallels]; of divisions [1 Cor 11:18]) where, on Robertson’s scheme, a gen. would be expected. Other examples showing the fallacy of this approach: in Jesus’ urging his audience to listen to his words and obey them, cf. the parallels in Matt 7:24 (acc.) and Luke 6:47 (gen.); the parallels of the angels’ articulate cry of “Come!” when they dispense with the seal judgments (Rev 6:3, 5 have the gen.; 6:7 has the acc.).) (explicitly so in Matt 13:19; Mark 13:7/Matt 24:6/Luke 21:9; Acts 5:24; 1 Cor 11:18; Eph 3:2; Col 1:4; Phlm 5; Jas 5:11; Rev 14:2). The exceptions, in fact, are seemingly more numerous than the rule! (Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1996], 133)
