The history of the early church was far more complex than Luke would have us believe. But we may still accept that it began with “a determinative Jerusalem Pentecost” that gave the church its impetus and character. The essential historicity of this event has been firmly established (see Dunn, Jesus, pp. 135–56). To an outside observer, it might have appeared as an outburst of enthusiasm within the sect of the Nazarenes. To the believers, it was an episode of critical importance in the history of salvation (see Martin, p. 70), for it saw the fulfillment of the Father’s promises in the prophecies of Isaiah 32:15 and Joel 2:28–32 (cf. 1:14f.), indicating thereby that a new age had dawned and that the kingdom of God had come (see disc. on 1:6).
2:1 Pentecost was the second of the three great annual festivals of the Jews, Passover being the first and the Feast of Tabernacles the other (see Deut. 16:16). The greatest number of pilgrims attended the Feast of Pentecost, as that time of the year was best suited to travel (see disc. on 20:3b). This was no doubt a factor in the providential ordering of events. On this particular Pentecost—there is no certainty what year it was, though A.D. 30 is as likely a date as any—they (the believers) were all together in one place. By all we may assume that at least the hundred and twenty of 1:15 were included, but there may have been others from Galilee and elsewhere who had come up to Jerusalem for the festival (see disc. on 9:31). We are not told where the disciples were meeting. The number of people involved, especially if they now exceeded a hundred and twenty, makes it less likely that they met in a private house than in some open or public place, though it does not exclude the possibility (see notes on 1:13). On the other hand, the fact that the crowd was quickly aware of what was happening (cf. v. 6) may suggest that they were somewhere where they could be seen, such as the outer court of the temple (see disc. on 3:11; 21:27). The use of the word “house” in verse 2 does not rule this out (cf. LXX Isa. 6:1, 4; Luke 2:49), though we might have expected the temple to have been named if it were indeed their place of meeting.
2:2–3 This much at least is certain: something happened that day to convince the disciples that the Spirit of God had come upon them—that they had been “baptized with the Holy Spirit” as Jesus had said they would be (1:5; cf. 2:17; 11:15ff.). As Luke describes it, there was suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind (v. 2). Luke’s comment that it came from heaven reflects his intention to describe not a natural but a supernatural event. Notice the word like. It was not the wind, but something for which the wind served as a symbol, namely, the divine presence and power (cf. 2 Sam. 5:24; 22:16; Job 37:10; Ps. 104:4; Ezek. 13:13; also Josephus, Antiquities 3.79–82; 7.71–77). Because wind suggests life and power, it became in both Hebrew and Greek the word for “spirit,” and here the word signifies especially God’s Spirit. And with the sound like wind there was also an appearance of what seemed to be tongues of fire (v. 3). Again, the expression seemed to be is important, for again the natural is used to express the supernatural. Here the Baptist’s words in Matthew 3:11f. provide a clue to the meaning with their reference to Spirit, fire, and judgment. Once more God’s Spirit is signified, now under the symbol of fire (cf. Exod. 3:2; 19:18; Ezek. 1:13), with the implication that he comes to purify his people (cf. Mal. 3:1ff.). One last piece of symbolism should be noticed: the appearance like fire rested upon each of them (v. 3). These disciples represented the whole church, and as such they all participated in the gift.
But to what extent were the sound and the appearance objective phenomena? In chapter 10, where Cornelius’ experience is likened to that of the disciples in this chapter, no mention is made of sights or sounds. Because of this, there are those who argue that there was nothing seen or heard on this occasion and that Luke has presented as visible and audible what was purely an inner experience. But the fact remains that he has presented the two incidents quite differently, insisting here that there was something to be observed—they saw (v. 3). After a careful examination of the evidence, Dunn comes to the conclusion that “what came to them came not from the depths of their subconscious, individual or collective, but from beyond themselves, outside themselves. It was the experience of divine power unexpected in its givenness and in its accompanying features” Jesus, p. 148).
2:4 But it was nonetheless also a subjective experience. Luke says as much with his expression all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit. To be “filled” (as distinct from being “full,” see disc. on 6:3) expresses the conscious experience of the moment (see disc. on 4:8). They felt as well as saw and heard, and gave expression to their feelings by speaking in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. This particular verb “to speak” (Gk. apophthegesthai) is peculiar to Acts in the New Testament (cf. v. 14; 26:25), but is used elsewhere in biblical Greek of the utterances of the prophets (e.g., LXX 1 Chron. 25:1; Ezek. 13:9; Mic. 5:12).
Their speaking in other tongues seems to mean something different from similar references elsewhere. Here, because “tongue” is used interchangeably with a word meaning “language” or “dialect” (Gk. dialektos, vv. 6, 8) and because what was said was apparently intelligible, we must suppose that recognized languages were spoken. But there is no reason to think that this was so on the other occasions in Acts when something like this happened (10:44ff.; 19:1ff.) and every reason to think otherwise in 1 Corinthians 12–14, where Paul’s whole argument rests on the “tongues” not being understood and needing “interpretation” (not translation). It would appear, then, that in the Corinthian church and probably in Acts 10 and 19, the “tongues” were some kind of ecstatic utterance, what the NEB calls “the language of ecstasy” (1 Cor. 14:2) and Paul, on one occasion, “the language of angels” (1 Cor. 13:1), and on another, perhaps, “groans that words cannot express” (Rom. 8:26).
But is it likely that we should have two different phenomena? On the assumption that it is not, Luke has been accused of misunderstanding or reinterpreting an earlier tradition in which the “tongues” of Acts 2 were the ecstatic utterances of the other references. Either that, or the tradition came to him in a garbled form, and what really happened was that the disciples spoke in “tongues” (in the usual sense), but their hearers thought they heard the praise of God in their own languages. Dunn steers a middle course between these two explanations. He refers to the phenomena of modern Pentecostalism: “Perhaps the most striking feature of glossolalia in Pentecostalism for the present discussion is the number of claims of an ‘unknown tongue’ which was actually a foreign language unknown to the speaker.… If such claims can be made with such conviction in the twentieth century, it is more readily conceivable that they were made at the time of the first Christian Pentecost” (Jesus, p. 151). He then suggests that many of those present identified some of the sounds uttered by the disciples with the languages of their homelands. The impression that they were speaking in those languages was heightened by the powerful spiritual impact of the disciples’ ecstasy, and this is the story that came down to Luke. He, for his part, gave it greater precision by clarifying the glossolalia into foreign languages proper and by introducing the note of universalism (cf. v. 5). So Dunn cautiously sums up: “There is no reason to doubt that the disciples experienced ecstatic speech on the day of Pentecost. And there is good reason, both from the text itself and from religious history parallels, to believe that the glossolalia and disciples’ behavior was such that many present thought they recognized words of praise to God in other languages” (Jesus, p. 152).
2:5–11a That something extraordinary had happened soon became evident to the public at large. If the disciples had been in their own quarters when the Spirit was given (see disc. on v. 1), they must by now have moved into the street. They may even have gone to the temple, “walking and jumping, and praising God” like the man in the next chapter. So, naturally, a crowd gathered. Among them were Jews of the Diaspora (i.e., from every nation under heaven, v. 5) who had made the city their home—or at least that appears to be Luke’s meaning by his choice of the Greek verb katoikein. Many Jews, we know, did return from abroad either to study (cf. 22:3) or simply to see out their days within the walls of Jerusalem, among the latter, women especially, judging by the names found on Greek ossuaries (see disc. on 6:1). At all events there were in the crowd people who could identify in what language the believers were saying words of praise from a wide range of languages. There were also some (Palestinian Jews) who could point out to the others that the speakers were Galileans. The condensed nature of Luke’s narrative makes it appear that the whole crowd made this observation, but it could only have been those among them who knew the disciples or could pick up their northern accent (cf. Matt. 26:73). That they should have commented on this is perhaps indicative of their surprise. Judeans tended to look down on Galileans.
2:11b–13 Meanwhile, the disciples were telling in the “tongues” the great things that God had done (cf. Sir. 36:8), while those who heard them were amazed and perplexed (v. 12). The second, especially, of these two verbs expresses (in Greek) their utter confusion—they simply did not know what to make of such behavior (cf. 5:24; 10:17), though some did hazard the unkind suggestion that the disciples might be drunk (cf. Eph. 5:18). How true to life this all sounds and how candid Luke is in reporting it!
Additional Notes
2:1 When the day of Pentecost came, lit. “was being filled up or fulfilled”: This has been taken as a reference to the period between Passover and Pentecost, meaning that the latter was approaching but had not yet come when these events took place. The same verb is used of time elsewhere in Luke 9:51, where NIV renders, “as the time approached.” However, all the circumstances point to its being the day of Pentecost itself, in which case we must understand the verb to mean that the day was already in progress (“being filled up”—the Jewish day was reckoned from the preceding sunset; see disc. on 20:7).
The name Pentecost is derived from the Greek word meaning “fifty,” and was so called because the feast was kept on the fiftieth day (reckoning inclusively) after the day following the Passover Sabbath, i.e., on the fiftieth day from the first “Sunday” (as we would call it) after the Passover, when the first sheaf of the harvest was offered (Lev. 23:15f.). Because the time between the offering of the first sheaf and the formal completion of the harvest at Pentecost was seven weeks, Pentecost was sometimes called the Feast of Weeks (Exod. 34:22; Lev. 23:15; Deut. 16:9–12) and sometimes the Feast of the Harvest and the Day of First Fruits (Exod. 23; Num. 28:26). According to the Old Testament, Pentecost was to be proclaimed as a “holy convocation” at which every male Israelite was required to appear at the sanctuary (Lev. 23:21). Two baked loaves were to be offered, together with the sin and peace offerings (Lev. 23:17–20). Thus the people not only gave thanks to God for the harvest, but acknowledged their obligation to him under the covenant. In later years, Pentecost actually became the feast to mark the renewal of the covenant (Jubilees 6:17–22; see J. D. G. Dunn, “Pentecost,” NIDNTT, vol. 2, p. 785) and by the second century was also a commemoration of the gift of the law at the time when the covenant was established (see notes on v. 6).
2:2–4 What happened at this Pentecost marked the beginning of the church. There were, of course, many believers before this, but only now were they constituted as the “body of Christ.” “In the full sense of the Church in vigorous life, redeemed by the cross of Christ, invigorated by the divine power, set forth on the path of work and worship, the Church certainly did not come into existence until the day of Pentecost” (L. L. Morris, Spirit of the Living God [London: Inter-Varsity, 1960], pp. 54f.). And what God gave that day he has never withdrawn. The Spirit that transformed the disciples and galvanized them into action remains with the church—he will “be with you forever,” Jesus had promised (John 14:16; cf. Ps. 51:11). The baptism of the Spirit, therefore, has never been repeated and never needs to be. It is true that on two other occasions something similar happened (10:44–46; 19:1–6), but these are best understood, not as repetitions, but as extensions of the Pentecostal event, aimed at meeting special cases. But, though the event itself has not been repeated, it has been and still is appropriated by every believer. When we become members of the body that the Spirit brought into being at Pentecost, we take to ourselves the birthright of the body, which is the Spirit himself. When we become Christians, we participate in the baptism with the Spirit that uniquely took place on that day so long ago (cf. 2:38; 9:17; 11:17; 19:2; Rom. 8:9; 1 Cor. 12:13; Gal. 3:2; Eph. 1:13; Titus 3:5; Heb. 6:4; 1 John 3:24). Therefore, no one may ask whether the believer has been baptized with the Spirit, for the very fact of being in the body of Christ demonstrates that he or she has. There is no other way of entering the church. And since water baptism outwardly marks that entrance, it also becomes the outward sign of the believer’s entry into the gift of the Spirit (see further the notes on v. 38). It may still remain, however, for the believer to become “full of the Spirit” (see disc. on 6:3), for we often “resist” the Spirit (cf. 5:3, 9; 7:51; Eph. 4:30; 1 Thess. 4:8; 5:19; Heb. 10:29) and must learn instead to trust and obey him (cf. 5:32; John 7:39; Gal. 3:1–5, 14).
All of them … began to speak in other tongues: For those to whom this gift is given—and it is not given to all, nor should all Christians expect to receive it (cf. 1 Cor. 12:6ff., 30; 14:5)—“tongues” are a means of “communication between the believer and God” (K. Stendahl, Paul Among Jews and Gentiles [London: S.C.M. Press, 1977], p. 113) and, especially, a means of giving praise, of responding emotionally to the mighty works of God. This was the case at Pentecost when, not the preaching (which was probably in Aramaic), but the praising beforehand, was expressed in “tongues.” At the same time, “tongues” have an evidential value. “The purpose of the miracle [at Pentecost] … was not to lighten the labour of the Christian missionary, but to call attention at the first outset to the advent of the Paraclete” (H. B. Swete, The Holy Spirit in the New Testament [London: Macmillan, 1909], p. 74). It was, moreover, a sign of the Paraclete’s work. As Kirsopp Lake observed, he would reverse the curse of Babel and let God’s voice be heard again in every nation under heaven, as it had been when he gave the law (BC, vol. 5, pp. 114ff.). See notes on v. 6 below for the Jewish tradition to which he alludes. Later, “tongues” would provide evidence that God’s Spirit was intended for Gentiles as well as for Jews (10:46; 11:15ff.) and later still would be a sign to the Ephesian “disciples” that the Holy Spirit had indeed come (see disc. on 19:2; cf. 1 Cor. 14:22 where they are thought of as a sign to unbelievers).
2:6 Each one heard them: Cf. vv. 8, 11. Some light may be thrown on Luke’s understanding of Pentecost by the custom, dating from at least the second century A.D., of regarding this festival as a commemoration of the giving of the law. Exodus 20:18 has it that “all the people perceived the voices” (though “voices” means “thunderings” in this context), and the rabbis interpreted this to mean that all the nations of the world heard the promulgation of the law. If this notion were current also in the first century, then Luke may have intended his readers to see the allusion. At this Pentecost, the “new law”—the proclamation of the messianic age and of the Messiah—was promulgated to the nations as the old law had been, thus breaking down “the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility” (Eph. 2:14).
2:9–11 Parthians, Medes and Elamites … Cretans and Arabs: For many Jews, distance was no bar to their paying the half-shekel temple tax every year or even to their going themselves to the temple for one or more of the great annual festivals. Over a hundred thousand are estimated to have attended Passover in Jesus’ day (see Jeremias, Jerusalem, p. 83).
That the Jews were widely dispersed is attested by a number of ancient writers (Josephus, Wars 2.345–401; Strabo, quoted by Josephus, Antiquities 14.110–118; Philo, On the Embassy to Gaius 36; cf. also Esther 3:8; 1 Macc. 15:15f.; John 7:35). It was almost literally true Jews could be found in “every nation under heaven” (v. 5), so that although Luke’s list was probably intended as an actual catalog of the nationalities present that year (see B. M. Metzger, AHG, pp. 123ff.), it could also be regarded as representative of a great many more.
Broadly speaking, the list carries the reader from east to west, with a change of construction in the Greek sentence to mark, perhaps, the transition from the Parthian Empire to that of Rome. Thus Parthia itself, as the farthest east, is mentioned first, a district southeast of the Caspian Sea, then Media, a district west of the Caspian and south of the Zagros Mountains, and then Elam, the ancient name for the Plain of Khuzistan, watered by the Kerkheh River, which joins the Tigris just north of the Persian Gulf. Mesopotamia, the first name in the changed construction of the sentence, was a general term used to describe the whole of the Tigris-Euphrates Valley, where the spheres of influence of the two empires met. These were the lands to which first the Israelites and then the Judeans had been deported in the eighth and sixth centuries B.C. and in which many of them had chosen to stay. This was the earliest and most populated area of the Diaspora.
The inclusion of Judea next in the list has struck many people as odd. So much so, that several alternative readings have been proposed, though with little textual support (see Bruce, Book, p. 62). A number of scholars, including Bruce, believe that “we should probably think of Judea in its widest possible sense, denoting the extent of the land controlled directly and indirectly by the Judean kings David and Solomon, from the Egyptian frontier to the Euphrates” (Book, p. 62). This suggestion has the attraction of accounting for those countries of the eastern Mediterranean that otherwise would be unrepresented. But we should not exaggerate the difficulty of interpreting Judea in the ordinary sense. A distinction was made between Jerusalem and the rest of the province (see notes on 1:8), and to the original compilers it may not have seemed as incongruous as it does to us to include the neighboring Judeans among the visitors.
Mention is then made of the visitors from Asia Minor—Pontus in the northeast (see disc. on 18:2); Cappadocia, south of Pontus; Phrygia, west of Cappadocia, separated from it by Lycaonia (the Roman province of Galatia now cut across these lands; see notes on 13:14); and Pamphylia on the south coast between Cilicia (see notes on 6:9) and Lycia (see disc. on 13:13). By Asia is meant, as elsewhere in Acts (6:9; 16:6; 19:1, 10, 22, 26, 27; 20:4, 16, 18; 21:27; 24:18; 27:2), the Roman province of that name. It comprised the western coast of Asia Minor, including the regions of Mysia, Lydia, and Caria and many of the offshore islands (see disc. on 19:1a). There were Jews to be found in these lands by the third century B.C. (Josephus, Antiquities 12.119–124). A century later their number was increased (in addition, that is, to voluntary migrations) by the resettlement of two thousand Jewish families from Mesopotamia in Lydia and Phrygia (Josephus, Antiquities 12.145–153; see disc. on 13:14). The middle chapters of Acts (13–19) are themselves a witness to the continuing presence and importance of the Jews in Asia Minor.
They are followed in Luke’s list by the Jews of Egypt. Both the Old Testament (e.g., Jer. 44:1) and the Elephantine Papyri of the fifth century B.C. and other archaeological materials give evidence of their early and well-established settlements in Egypt, and by the first century A.D. they are said to have numbered in that country one million (Philo, Flaccus 6; cf. Josephus, Antiquities 14.110–118; for the Jews of Alexandria see notes on 6:9). From Egypt they had penetrated westward into Libya (a broad term for North Africa west of Egypt), and these Jews are represented in the catalog by those who came from “the parts of Libya near Cyrene,” i.e., from the district known as Cyrenaica, which lay to the east of the Syrtis Major (the Gulf of Sidra; see disc. on 27:17) and of which Cyrene was the chief city. Strabo mentions the presence of Jews in this city in particular (Josephus, Antiquities 14.110–118).
From farthest west were the Roman Jews (cf. 1:8; see disc. on 28:16). How long Jews had been there we do not know, but they are named in an expulsion order of 139 B.C. No doubt they soon returned and were joined by others. Their numbers were further increased by the many families Pompey brought to Rome in 62 B.C. and who received their freedom and settled down, for the most part beyond the Tiber. Though unpopular, they prospered, and estimates of their number in the first century A.D. have been put as high as seventy thousand. The Roman Jews are mentioned in Luke’s list in company with other Romans who had been converted to their faith (see notes on 6:5). It is unlikely that the latter were the only Gentile converts in Jerusalem at the time, but it may have been Luke’s purpose to draw special attention to their presence at the founding of the church.
Finally, in what appears to be an afterthought, he notes the presence also of Cretan and Arabian Jews. To the Greco-Roman mind, Arabia meant, not the whole of the Arabian peninsula, but only that part of it immediately to the east and south of Palestine where lay the kingdom of Nabatea (see disc. on 9:23–25). Their mention at the end of the list may mean that they were not present in Jerusalem in great numbers and were only remembered later when the list was checked over. On the other hand, the special mention of Cretan Jews is strikingly in accord with the statement of Philo that all the more notable islands of the Mediterranean—and he cites Crete especially—were “full of Jews” (Embassy to Gains, 36).
2:13 They have had too much wine: The word wine (oinos) can mean either “new wine” or “sweet wine.” If the former is accepted, there is the difficulty that at Pentecost there was no new wine, strictly speaking, the earliest vintage being in August. It may be best, therefore, to accept the meaning “sweet wine.” The ancients had ways of keeping wine sweet all the year round.
