Movatterモバイル変換

Meyer's NT Commentary

CHAPTER 2

Acts 2:1.ἅπαντες ὁμοθυμαδόν] Lachm. and Tisch. readπάντες ὁμοῦ, after A B C*א, min. Vulg. Correctly: theὁμοθυμαδόν, so very frequent in the Acts, unintentionally supplanted theὁμοῦ found elsewhere in the N. T. only in John;πάντεξ (which is wanting inא*) critically goes along with the readingὁμοῦ.

Acts 2:2.καθήμενοι] Lachm. Tisch. Born. readκαθεζόμενοι, according to C D. The Recepta (comp. onActs 20:9) is more usual in the N. T., and was accordingly inserted.

Acts 2:3.ὡσεί] is wanting only inא*.

ἐκάθισεν] Born., following D*א*, Syr. utr. Arr. Copt. Ath. Did. Cyr., readsἐκάθισαν. A. correction occasioned byγλῶσσαι.

Acts 2:7. Afterἐξίσταντο δὲ Elz. hasπάντες, which Lachm. Scholz, Tisch. Born. have erased, following B D, min. and several VSS. and Fathers. FromActs 2:12.

πρὸς ἀλλήλους] is wanting in A B Cא, 26, Copt. Sahid. Aeth. Vulg. Theodoret. Deleted by Lachm. and Tisch. It was, as self-evident, easily passed over. Its genuineness is supported by the readingπρὸς ἀλλήλους,Acts 2:12, instead ofἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον, which is found in 4, 14, al., Aeth. Vulg. Chrys. Theophyl., and has manifestly arisen from this passage.

Acts 2:12.τί ἂν θέλοι τοῦτο εἶναι] Lachm. Born. readτί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι, following A B C D, min. Chrys.: A hasθέλει afterτοῦτο. But afterλέγειν the direct expression was most familiar to the transcribers (comp.Acts 2:7).

Acts 2:13.διαχλευάζοντες] Elz. readsχλευάζοντες, against preponderating testimony.

Acts 2:16.ʼΙωήλ] Tisch. and Born. have deleted this word on too weak authority (it is wanting among the codd. only in D).

Acts 2:17.ἐνυπνίοις] Elz. readsἐνύπνια, against decisive codd. From LXX.Joel 3:1.

Acts 2:22.αὐτοί] Elz. readsκαὶ αὐτοί. But Lachm. and Tisch. have correctly deletedκαί, in accordance with A B C* D Eא, min. and several VSS. and Fathers.καί, both afterκαθώς and beforeαὐτοί, was very familiar to the transcribers.

Acts 2:23. Afterἔκδοτον Elz. and Scholz readλαβόντες, which is wanting in A B Cא*, min. and several VSS. and Fathers. An addition to develope the construction.

Instead ofχειρῶν, Lachm. Tisch. Born. haveχειρός; following A B C Dא, min. Syr. p. Aeth. Ath. Cyr. And justly, asχειρῶν was evidently inserted for the sake of the followingἀνόμων.

Acts 2:24.θανάτου] D, Syr. Erp. Copt. Vulg. and several Fathers readᾅδου. So Born. FromActs 2:27;Acts 2:31.

Acts 2:27.ᾅδον] Lachm. Born. and Tisch. readᾅδηυ, which was already recommended by Griesb., in accordance with A B C Dא, min. Clem. Epiph. Theophyl. As in the LXX.Psalm 16:10, the reading is also different, A havingᾅδου and Bᾅδην the text here is to be decided merely by the preponderance of testimonies, which favoursᾅδην.

Acts 2:30. Beforeκαθίσαι, Elz. Scholz, Born, readτὸ κατὰ σάρκα ἀναστήσειν τὸν Χριστόν, which is wanting in A B C D**א, min. and most VSS. and several Fathers, has in other witnesses considerable variation, and, as already Mill correctly saw, is a marginal gloss inserted in the text.

Instead ofτοῦ θρόνου, Lachm. Born. Tisch. readτὸν θρόνον, according to A B C Dא, min. Eus. This important authority, as well as the circumstance thatἐπί with the genitive along withκαθίζειν is very usual in the N. T. (comp.Luke 22:20;Acts 12:21;Acts 25:6;Acts 25:17;Matthew 19:28;Matthew 23:2;Matthew 25:31), decides for the accusative.

Acts 2:31.κατελείφθη A B C D Eא, min. and several Fathers readἐγκατελείφθη. Recommended by Griesb., and adopted by Lachm. Tisch. Born. FromActs 2:27. Therefore not only isᾅδην (instead ofᾅδου) read by Tisch., but also afterκατελείφθη there is read by Elz.ἡ ψυχὴ αὐτοῦ, for the omission of which the authorities decide.

οὔτε …οὔτε is according to important testimony to be received, with Lachm. Tisch. Born., instead ofοὐ …οὐδέ, as the reading given in the text appears likewise to have been formed fromActs 2:27.

Acts 2:33.ὑμεῖς] Elz. Scholz haveνῦν ὑμεῖς. But, according to A B C* Dא, min. and many VSS. and Fathers, Lachm. Born. Tisch. have erasedνῦν, which is an addition by way of gloss.

Acts 2:37.ποιήσομεν]ποιήσωμεν is found in A C Eא, min. Fathers. But the deliberative subjunctive was the more usual. Comp. onActs 4:16.

Acts 2:38.ἔφη] is, with Lachm. and Tisch., to be erased, as it is entirely wanting in B min. Vulg. ms. Aug., and other witnesses readφησὶν, which they have partly afterμετανοήσ. (A Cא, 15, al.), partly afterαὐτούς (D). A supplementary addition.

Acts 2:40.διεμαρτύρατο] Elz. Scholz readδιεμαρτύρετο, against decisive testimony. A form modelled after the following imperfect

Acts 2:41. Afterοὖν, Elz. Scholz readἀσμένως, which Lachm. and Tisch. have deleted, in accordance with far preponderating testimony. A strengthening addition.

Acts 2:42.καὶ, beforeτῇ κλάσει is rejected by decisive testimony (erased by Lachm. Tisch. Born.).

Acts 2:43.ἐγένετο] Lachm. Tisch. Born. readἐγίνετο, according to A B C Dא, min. Vulg. Copt. Syr. utr. This considerable attestation prevents us from assuming a formation resembling what follows; on the contrary,ἐγένετο has been inserted as the more usual form.

Acts 2:47.τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ] is wanting in A B Cא, Copt. Sahid. Aeth. Arm. Vulg. Cyr. Deleted by Lachm., after Mill and Bengel. It was omitted for the sake of conformity toActs 2:41, becauseἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό,Acts 3:1, was considered as still belonging toActs 2:47, and thereforeActs 3:1 began withΠετρὸς δέ (so Lachm.).

Acts 2:1.[109]When the day of Pentecost became full, i.e. when the day of Pentecost had come,on the day of Pentecost. The day is, according to the Hebrew mode (see Gesen.Thes. s.v.מלא), conceived asa measure to be filled up (comp. alsoActs 9:23;Luke 2:6;Luke 22:9;Luke 22:51, and many similar passages in the N. T. and in the Apocrypha); so long as the day had not yet arrived, but still belonged to the future, the measure was not yet filled, butempty. But as soon as it appeared, the fulfilment, the making the day full, theΣΥΜΠΛΉΡΩΣΙς (comp. 3 Esdr. 1:58;Daniel 9:2) therewith occurred; by which, without figure, is meant the realization of the day which had not hitherto become a reality. The expression itself, which concerns the definite individual day, is at variance with the view of Olshausen and Baumgarten, who would havethe time from Easter to be regarded as becoming full. Quite without warrant, Hitzig (Ostern und Pfingst, p. 39 f.) would place the occurrence not at Pentecost at all. See, in opposition to this, Schneckenb. p. 198 f.

ἡ πεντηκοστή] is indeed originally to be referred to theἡμέρα understood; but this supplementary noun had entirely fallen into disuse, and the word had become quite an independent substantive (comp.2Ma 12:32).πεντηκοστή also occurs inTob 2:1, quite apart from its numeral signification, andἐν τῇ πεντηκοστῇ ἑορτῇ is there:on the Pentecost-feast. See Fritzschein loc. The feast of Pentecost,חַג שָּׁבֻעוֹת,Deuteronomy 16:9-10 (ἁγία ἑπτὰ ἑβδομάδων, Tob.I.c.), was one of the three great festivals, appointed as thefeast of the grain-harvest (Exodus 23:16;Numbers 28:26), and subsequently, although we find no mention of this in Philo and Josephus (comp. Bauer in the Stud. u. Krit. 1843, p. 680), regarded also as the celebration of the giving of the law from Sinai, falling (Exodus 19:1) in the third month (Danz in Meuschen,N. T. ex Talm. ill. p. 741; Buxt.Synag. p. 438). It was restricted to one day, and celebrated on the fiftieth day after the first day of the Passover (Leviticus 23:15-16); so that the second paschal day,i.e. the 16th of Nisan, the day of the sheaf offering, is to be reckoned as the first of these fifty days. See Lightfoot and Wetsteinin loc.; Ewald,Alterth. p. 476 f.; Keil, Archäol. § 83. Now, as in that year the Passover occurred on the evening of Friday (see onJohn 18:28), and consequently this Friday, the day of the death of Jesus, was the 14th of Nisan, Saturday the 15th, and Sunday the 16th, the tradition of the ancient church has very correctly placed the first Christian Pentecoston the Sunday.[110] Therefore the custom—which, besides, cannot be shown to have existed at the time of Jesus—of theKaraites, who explainedשבת inLeviticus 23:15 not of the first day of the Passover, but of the Sabbath occurring in the paschal week, and thus held Pentecostalways on a Sunday (Ideler, II. p. 613; Wieseler,Synop. p. 349), is to be left entirely out of consideration (in opposition to Hitzig); and it is not to be assumed that the disciples might have celebratedwith the Karaites both Passover and Pentecost.[111] But still the question arises:Whether Luke himself conceived of that first Christian Pentecost as a Saturday or a Sunday? As he, following with Matthew and Mark the Galilean tradition, makes the Passover occur already on Thursday evening and be partaken of by Jesus Himself, and accordingly makes the Friday of the crucifixion the 15th of Nisan; so he must necessarily—but just as erroneously—have conceived of this firstπεντηκοστή as aSaturday (Wieseler,Chronol. d. apost. Zeitalt. p. 19), unless we should assume that he may have had no other conception of the day of Pentecost than that which was in conformity with the Christian custom of theSunday celebration of Pentecost; which, indeed, does not correspond with his account of the day of Jesus’ death as the 15th Nisan, but shows the correctness of the Johannine tradition.

ἦσαν πάντες ὁμοῦ ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό] Concerning the text, see the critical remarks; concerningἘΠῚ ΤῸ ΑὐΤΌ, see onActs 1:15. TheseΠΆΝΤΕς,all, were not merely the apostles, butall the followers of Jesus then in Jerusalem, partly natives and partly strangers, including the apostles. For, first of all, it may certainly be presumed that on the day of Pentecost, and, moreover, at the hour of prayer (Acts 2:15), not the apostles alone, but with them also the otherμαθηταί—among whom there were, without doubt, many foreign pilgrims to the feast—were assembled. Moreover, inActs 2:14 the apostles are distinguished from the rest. Further, theΠΆΝΤΕς, designedly added, by no means corresponds to the small number of the apostles (Acts 1:26), especially as in the narrative immediately preceding mention was made of a much greater assembly (Acts 1:15); it is, on the contrary, designed—because otherwise it would have been superfluous—to indicate astill greater completeness of the assembly, and therefore it may not be limited even to the 120 persons alone. Lastly, it is clear also from the prophetic saying of Joel, adduced inActs 2:16 ff., that the effusion of the Spirit was not on the apostles merely, but onall the new people of God, so thatἅπαντες (Acts 2:1) must be understood ofall the followers of Jesus (of course, according to the latitude of thepopular manner of expression).

[109] Concerning the Pentecostal occurrence, see van Hengel,de gave der talen, Pinksterstudie, Leid. 1864.

[110] In opposition to the view of Hupfeld,de primitiva et vera festorum ap. Hebr. ratione, Hal. 1852, who will have the fifty days reckoned from thelast paschal day; see Ewald,Jahrb. IV. p. 134 f.

[111] 1 See also Vaihinger in Herzog’sEncykl. XI. p. 476 f.

Acts 2:2 describes what preceded the effusion of the Spirit as anaudibleσημεῖον—asound occurring unexpectedly from heaven as of a violent wind borne along (comp.πνεῦμα βίαιον, Arrian.Exp. Al. ii. 6. 3; Pausan. x. 17. 11). The wonderful sound is, by thecomparison (ὥσπερ) with a violent wind, intended to be brought home to the conception of the reader, but not to be represented as an actual storm of wind (Eichhorn, Heinrichs), or gust (Ewald), or other natural phenomenon (comp. Neander, p. 14).[112] Comp. Hom.Od. vi. 20.

οἶκον] is not arbitrarily and against N. T. usage to be limited to theroom (Valckenaer), but is to be understood of aprivate house, and, indeed, most probably of the same house, which is already known fromActs 1:13;Acts 1:15 as the meeting-place of the disciples of Jesus. Whether it was the very house in which Jesus partook of the last supper (Mark 14:12 ff.), as Ewald conjectures, cannot he determined. If Luke had meant thetemple, as, after the older commentators, Morus, Heinrichs, Olshausen, Baumgarten, also Wieseler, p. 18, and Lange,Apost. Zeitalt. II. p. 14, assume, he must havenamed it; the reader could not haveguessed it. For (1) it is by no means necessary that we should think of the assembly on the first day of Pentecost and at the time of prayer just as in the temple. On the contrary,Acts 2:1 describes the circle of those met together as closed and in a manner separatist; hence a place in the temple could neither be wished for by them nor granted to them. Nor is the opinion, that it was the temple, to be established fromLuke 24:53, where the mode of expression is popular. (2) The supposition that they were assembled in the temple is not required by the great multitude of those that flocked together (Acts 2:6). The private house may have been in the neighbourhood of the temple; but not even this supposition is necessary,considering the miraculous character of the occurrence. (3) It is true that, according to Joseph.Antt. viii. 3. 2, the principal building of the temple had thirty halls built around it, which he callsοἴκους; but could Luke suppose Theophilus possessed of this special knowledge? “But,” it is said, (4) “the solemn inauguration of the church of Christ then presents itself with imposing effectin the sanctuary of the old covenant,” Olshausen; “the new spiritual temple must have … proceeded from the envelope of the old temple,” Lange. But this locality would need first to be proved! If this inauguration didnot take place in the temple, with the same warrant there might be seen in this an equally imposing indication of the entire severance of the new theocracy from the old. Yet Luke has indicated neither the one nor the other idea, and it is not tillActs 2:44 that the visit to the temple emerges in his narrative.

Kaiser (Commentat. 1820, pp. 3–23; comp.bibl. Theol. II. p. 41) infers fromἦσαν …ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό,Acts 2:1, as well as fromΟἾΚΟς,ΚΑΘΉΜΕΝΟΙ,Οὐ ΜΕΘΎΟΥΣΙΝ,Acts 2:15, etc., that this Christian private assembly, at the first feast of Pentecost, had for its object the celebration of the Agapae. Comp. Augusti,Denkwürdigkeiten aus der christl. Arch. IV. p. 124. An interpretation arbitrarily put into the words. The sacredness of the festival was in itself a sufficient reason for their assembling, especially considering the deeply excited state of feeling in which they were, and the promise which was given to the apostles for so near a realization.

οὗ ἦσαν καθεζόμενοι]where, that is,in which they were sitting. We have to conceive those assembled, ere yet the hour of prayer (Acts 2:15) had arrived (for in prayer they stood), sitting at the feet of the teachers.

[112] Lightfoot aptly remarks: “Sonus venti vehementis, sed absque vento; sic etiam linguae igneae, sed absque igne.”

Acts 2:3. After theaudibleσημεῖον immediately follows thevisible. Incorrectly Luther: “there were seen on them the tongues divided as if they were of fire.”[113] The words mean:There appeared to them, i.e. there were seen by them,tongues becoming distributed, fire-like, i.e. tongues which appeared like little flames of fire, and were distributed (Acts 2:45;Luke 22:17;Luke 23:34) upon those present (see the followingἐκάθισε κ.τ.λ.). They were thus appearances of tongues, which were luminous, but did not burn; not really consisting of fire, but onlyὡσεὶ πυρός; and not confluent into one, but distributing themselves severally on the assembled. As onlysimilar to fire, they bore an analogy toelectric phenomena; their tongue-shape referred as aσημεῖον to that miraculousλαλεῖν which ensued immediately after, and thefire-like form to thedivine presence (comp.Exodus 3:2), which was here operative in a manner so entirely peculiar. The whole phenomenon is to be understood as a miraculous operation of God manifesting Himself in the Spirit, by which, as by the preceding sound from heaven, the effusion of the Spirit was made known asdivine, and His efficacy on the minds of those who were to receive Him was enhanced. A more special physiological definition of theΣΗΜΕῖΑ,Acts 2:2-3, is impossible. Lange, Apost. Zeitalt. II. p. 19, fancifully supposes that the noise of the wind was a streaming of the heavenly powers from above, audible to the opened visionary sense, and that the tongues of fire were a disengaging of the solar fire-power of the earth and its atmosphere (?). The attempts, also, to convert this appearance of fire-like tongues into an accidental electricnatural occurrence (Paulus, Thiess, and others) are in vain; for these flames, which make their appearance, during an accumulation of electric matter, on towers, masts, and even on men, present far too weak resemblances; and besides, the room of a house, where the phenomenonexclusively occurred, was altogether unsuited for any such natural development. The representation of the text is monstrously altered by Heinrichs:Fulgura cellam vere pervadebant, sed in inusitatas imagines ea effinxit apostolorum commota mens; as also by Heumann: that they believed that they saw the fiery tongues merelyin the ecstatic state; and not less so by Eichhorn, who says that “they saw flames” signifies in rabbinicalusus loquendi: they were transported intoecstatic excitement. The passages adduced by Eichhorn from Schoettgen contain no merely figurative modes of expression, but fancies of the later Rabbins to be understood literally in imitation of the phenomena at Sinai,—of which phenomena, we may add, a real historical analogue is to be recognised in our passage.

ἐκάθισέ τε] namely, not an indefinite subject,something (Hildebrand, comp. Buttm. neut. Gr. p. 118 [E. T. 134]), but such aγλῶσσα ὡσεὶ πυρός. If Luke had writtenἘΚΆΘΙΣΑΝ (see the critical remarks), the notion that oneΓΛῶΣΣΑ sat upon each would not have been definitely expressed. Comp. Winer, p. 481 [E. T. 648]. Oecumenius, Beza, Castalio, Schoettgen, Kuinoel, incorrectly takeΠῦΡ as the subject, since, in fact, there was no fire at all, but only something resembling fire;ὩΣΕῚ ΠΥΡΌς serves only for comparison, and consequentlyΠῦΡ cannot be the subject of the continued narrative. Others, as Chrysostom, Theophylact, Luther, Calvin, Wolf, Bengel, Heinrichset al., consider theπνεῦμα ἅγιον as subject. In that case it would have to be interpreted, with Fritzsche (Conject. I. p. 13):ΚΑΘΊΣΑΝΤΟς ἘΦʼ ἝΝΑ ἝΚΑΣΤΟΝ ΑὐΤῶΝ ἘΠΛΉΣΘΗΣΑΝ ἍΠΑΝΤΕς ΠΝΕΎΜΑΤΟς ἉΓΊΟΥ, andMatthew 17:18 would be similar. Very harsh, seeing that theΠΝΕῦΜΑ ἍΓΙΟΥ, in so far as itsat on the assembled, would appear as identical with its symbol, the fiery tongues; but in so far as itfilled the assembled, as theΠΝΕῦΜΑ itself, different from the symbol.

TheΤΈ joining on to the preceding (Lachm. readsΚΑΊ, following insufficient testimony) connectsἘΚΆΘΙΣΕ Κ.Τ.Λ. withὬΦΘΗΣΑΝ Κ.Τ.Λ. into an unity, so that the description divides itself into thethree acts:ὤφθησαν κ.τ.λ.,ἐπλήσθησαν κ.τ.λ., andἤρξαντο κ.τ.λ., as is marked by the thrice recurringκαί.

[113] Therefore the expression is not to be explained fromIsaiah 5:24, for there לְשׁוֹן אֵשׁ is a representation of that which consumes.

Acts 2:4. After thisexternal phenomenon, there now ensued theinternal filling of all who were assembled,[114] without exception (ἘΠΛ.ἍΠΑΝΤΕς, comp.Acts 2:1), with the Holy Spirit, of which theimmediate result was, that they, and, indeed, these sameἅπαντες (comp.Acts 4:31)—accordingly not excluding the apostles (in opposition to van Hengel)

ἬΡΞΑΝΤΟ ΛΑΛΕῖΝ ἙΤΈΡΑΙς ΓΛΏΣΣΑΙς. Earlier cases of being filled with the Spirit (Luke 1:41;Luke 1:47;John 20:22; comp. alsoLuke 9:55) are related to the present as the momentary, partial, and typical, to the permanent, complete, and antitypical, such as could only occur after theglorifying of Jesus (seeActs 2:33;John 16:7;John 7:39).

ἤρξαντο] brings into prominence theprimus impetus of the act as its most remarkable element.

λαλεῖν ἑτέραις γλώσσαις] For the sure determination of what Luke meant by this, it is decisive thatἙΤΈΡΑΙς ΓΛΏΣΣΑΙς on the part of the speakers was, in point of fact, the same thing which the congregated Parthians, Medes, Elamites, etc., designated asΤΑῖς ἩΜΕΤΈΡΑΙς ΓΛΏΣΣΑΙς (comp.Acts 2:8 :Τῇ ἸΔΊᾼ ΔΙΑΛΈΚΤῼ ἩΜῶΝ). TheἝΤΕΡΑΙ ΓΛῶΣΣΑΙ therefore are, according to the text, to be considered as absolutely nothing else thanlanguages, which were different from the native language of the speakers. They, the Galileans, spoke, one Parthian, another Median, etc., consequently languages ofanother sort (Luke 9:29;Mark 16:13;Galatians 1:6),i.e. foreign (1 Corinthians 14:21); and these indeed—the point wherein precisely appeared themiraculous operation of the Spirit—not acquired by study (γλώσσαις καιναῖς,Mark 16:17). Accordingly the text itself determines the meaning ofΓΛῶΣΣΑΙ aslanguages, not:tongues (as van Hengel again assumes on the basis ofActs 2:3, where, however, the tongues have only thesymbolic destination of a divineσημεῖον[115]); and thereby excludes the various other explanations, and in particular those which start from the meaningverba obsoleta et poetica (Galen,exeg. glossar. Hippocr. Prooem.; Aristot.Ars poet. 21. 4 ff., 22. 3 f.; Quinctil. 1. 8; Pollux. 2. 4; Plut.Pyth. Orac. 24; and see Giese,Aeol. Dial. p. 42 ff.). This remark holds good (1) of the interpretation of Herder (von d. Gabe der Sprachen am ersten christl. Pfingstf., Riga, 1794), thatnew modes of interpreting the ancient prophets were meant; (2) against Heinrichs, who (after A. G. Meyer,de charismateτῶν γλωσσῶν, etc., Hannov. 1797) founds on that assumed meaning ofγλῶσσαι his explanation ofenthusiastic speaking in languages which were foreign indeed, different from the sacred language, but were the native languages of the speakers; (3) against Bleek in theStud. u. Krit. 1829, p. 33 ff., 1830, p. 45 ff. The latter explainsγλῶσσαι asglosses, i.e. unusual, antiquated poetical and provincial expressions. According to him, we are not to think of a connected speaking in foreign languages, but of a speaking in expressions which were foreign to the language of common life, and in which there was an approximation to a highly poetical phraseology, yet so that these glosses were borrowed from different dialects and languages (thereforeἑτέραις). Against this explanation of theγλῶσσαι, which is supported by Bleek with much erudition, theusus loquendi is already decisive. Forγλῶσσα in that sense is agrammatico-technical expression, or at least an expression borrowed from grammarians, which is onlyas such philologically beyond dispute (see all the passages in Bleek, p. 33 ff., and already in A. G. Meyer,l.c.; Fritzsche,ad Marc. p. 741). But this meaning is entirely unknown to ordinary linguistic usage, and particularly to that of the O. and N. T. How should Luke have hit upon the use of such a singular expression for a thing, which he could easily designate by words universally intelligible? How could he put this expression even into the mouths of the Parthians, Medes, Elamites, etc.? Forἡμετέραις γλώσσαις,Acts 2:11, must be explained in a manner entirely corresponding to this. Further, there would result forἡμετέραις a wholly absurd meaning.ἡμέτεραι γλώσσαι, forsooth, would be nothing else than glosses, obsolete expressions, which are peculiar only to the Parthians, or to the Medes, or to the Elamites, etc., just as theἈττικαὶ γλῶσσαι of Theodorus (in Athen. xiv. p. 646 c, p. 1437, ed. Dindorf) areprovincialisms of Attica, which were not current among the rest of the Greeks. Finally, it is further decisive against Bleek that, according to his explanation ofγλῶσσα transferred also to1 Corinthians 12:14, no sense is left for the singular termγλώσσῃ λαλεῖν; forγλῶσσα could not denotegenus locutionis glossematicum (λέξις γλωσσηματική, Dionys. Hal.de Thuc. 24), but simplya single gloss. As Bleek’s explanation falls to the ground, so must every other which takesγλῶσσαι in any other sense thanlanguages, which itmust mean according toActs 2:6;Acts 2:8;Acts 2:11. This remark holds particularly (4) against the understanding of the matter by van Hengel, according to whom the assembled followers of Jesus spoke with othertongues than those with which they formerly spoke, namely, in the excitement of a fiery inspiration, but still all of them inAramaic, so that each of those who came together heard the language of his own ancestral worship from the mouth of these Galileans,Acts 2:6.

[114] Chrysostom well remarks:οὐκ ἂν εἶπε πάντες,καὶ ἀποστόλων ὄντων ἐκεῖ,εἰ μὴ καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι μετέσχον. See also van Hengel, p. 54 ff.

[115] Van Hengel understands, according to ver. 3, byἕτεραι γλ., “tongues of fire, which the believers in Jesus have obtained through their communion with the Holy Spirit.” That is, “an open-hearted and loud speaking to the glorifying of God in Christ,” such as had not been done before. Previously their tongues had beenwithout fire.

From what has been already said, and at the same time from the express contrast in which the list of nations (Acts 2:9-11) stands with the questionοὐκ ἰδοὺ πάντες …Γαλιλαῖοι (Acts 2:7), it results beyond all doubt that Luke intended to narrate nothing else than this:the persons possessed by the Spirit began to speak in languages which were foreign to their nationality instead of their mother-tongue, namely, in the languages of other nations,[116]the knowledge and use of which were previously wanting to them, and were only now communicated in and with theπνεῦμα ἅγιον. Comp. Storr,Opusc. II. p. 290 ff., III. p. 277 ff.; Milville,Obss. theol. exeg. de dono linguar. Basil. 1816. See also Schaff,Gesch. d. apost. K. p. 201 ff., ed. 2; Ch. F. Fritzsche,Nova opusc. p. 304 f. The author ofMark 16:17 has correctly understood the expression of Luke, when, in reference to our narrative, he wroteκαιναῖς instead ofἙΤΈΡΑΙς. The explanation offoreign languages has been since the days of Origen that of most of the Church Fathers and expositors; but the monstrous extension of this view formerly prevalent, to the effect that the inspired received the gift of speakingall the languages of the earth (Augustin.: “coeperunt loqui linguisomnium gentium”), and that for the purpose of enabling them to proclaim the gospel to all nations, is unwarranted. “Poena linguarum dispersit homines: donum linguarum dispersos in unum populum collegit,” Grotius. Of this the text knows nothing; it leaves it, on the contrary, entirely undetermined whether, over and above the languages specially mentioned inActs 2:9-11, any others were spoken. For the preaching of the gospel in the apostolic agethis alleged gift of languages was partlyunnecessary, as the preachers needed only to be able to speak Hebrew and Greek (comp. Schneckenb.neutest. Zeitgesch. p. 17 ff.), and partlytoo general, as among the assembled there were certainly very many who did not enter upon the vocation of teacher. And, on the other hand, such a gift would also have been premature, since Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles, would, above all, have needed it; and yet in his case there is no trace of itssubsequent reception, just as there is no evidence of his having preached in any other language than Hebrew and Greek.

[116] Comp., besides1 Corinthians 14:21, Ecclus.praef.:ὅταν μεταχθῆ (the Hebrew)εἰς ἑτέραν γλῶσσαν (Leo,Tact. 4. 49:γλώσσαις διαφόροις λαλεῖν); also Aesch.Sept.171:πόλιν δορίπονον μὴ προδῶθʼ ἑτεροφώνῳ στρατῷ. Not different is Pind.Pyth. xi. 43:ἀλλοτρίαισι γλώσσαις.

But how is the occurrence to be judged of historically? On this the following points are to be observed:—(1) Since the sudden communication of a facility of speaking foreign languages is neither logically possible nor psychologically and morally conceivable, and since in the case of the apostles not the slightest indication of it is perceptible in their letters or otherwise (comp., on the contrary,Acts 14:11); since further, if it is to be assumed as having been only momentary, the impossibility is even increased, and since Peter himself in his address makes not even the slightest allusion to the foreign languages,—the event, as Luke narrates it, cannot be presented in the actual form of its historical occurrence, whether we regard that Pentecostal assembly (without any indication to that effect in the text) as a representation of the entire future Christian body (Baumgarten) or not. (2) The analogy ofmagnetism (adduced especially by Olshausen, and by Baeumlein in theWürtemb. Stud. VI. 2, p. 118) is entirely foreign to the point, especially as those possessed by the Spirit were already speaking in foreign languages, when the Parthians, Medes, etc., came up, so that anything corresponding to the magnetic “rapport” is not conceivable. (3) If the event is alleged to have taken place, as it is narrated, with a view to the representation of anidea,[117] and that, indeed, only at the time and without leaving behind a permanent facility of speaking languages (Rossteuscher,Gabe der Sprachen, Marb. 1850, p. 97: “in order to represent and to attest, in germ and symbol, the future gathering of the elect out of all nations, the consecration of their languages in the church, and again the holiness of the church in the use of these profane idioms, as also of what is natural generally”), such a view is nothing else than a gratuitously-imported subjective abstraction of fancy, which leaves the point of the impossibility and the non-historical character of the occurrence entirely unsettled, although it arbitrarily falls back upon the Babylonian confusion of tongues as its corresponding historical type. This remark also applies against Lange,Apost. Zeitalt. II. p. 22 ff., according to whose fanciful notionthe original language of the inner life by which men’s minds are united has here reached its fairest manifestation. This Pentecostal language, he holds, still pervades the church as the language of the inmost life in God, as the language of the Bible, glorified by the gospel, and as the leaven of all languages, which effects their regeneration into the language of the Spirit. (4) Nevertheless, the state of the fact can in nowise be reduced to a speaking of the persons assembled intheir mother—tongues, so that the speakers would have been no native Galileans (Paulus, Eichhorn, Schulthess,de charismatib. sp. s., Lips. 1818, Kuinoel, Heinrichs, Fritzsche, Schrader, and others); along with which David Schulz (d. Geistesgaben d. ersten Christen, Breslau, 1836) explainsἑτέραις γλώσσαις even ofother kinds of singing praise, which found utterance in the provincial dialects contrary to their custom and ability at other times. Thus the very essence of the narrative, themiraculous nature of the phenomenon, is swept away, and there is not even leftmatter of surprise fitted to give sufficient occasion for the astonishment and its expressions, if we do not, with Thiess, resort even to the hypothesis that the speakers had only used the Aramaic dialects instead of the Galilean. Every resolution of the matter into a speaking of native languages is directly against the nature and the words of the narrative, and therefore unwarranted. (5) Equally unwarranted, moreover, is the conversion, utterly in the face of the narrative, of the miracle of tongues into amiracle of hearing, so that those assembled did not, indeed, speak in any foreign tongue, but the foreigners listening believed that they heard their own native languages. See against this view, Castalioin loc., and Beza on x. 46. This opinion (which Billroth on 1 Cor. strangely outbids by his fancy of aprimeval language which had been spoken) is already represented by Gregory of Nazianzus,Orat. 41, as allowable by the punctuation ofActs 2:6; is found thereafter in thePseudo-Cyprian (Arnold), in the appendix to theOpp. Cypr. p. 60, ed. Brem. (p. 475, ed. Basil. 1530), in Beda, Erasmus, and others; and has recently been advocated especially by Schnecken-burger,Beitr. p. 84; comp.üb. den Zweck d. Apostelgesch. p. 202 ff.:[118] legend also presents later analogous phenomena (in the life of Francis Xavier and others). (6) The miraculous gift oflanguages remains the centre of the entire narrative (see Ch. F. Fritzsche,nova opusc. p. 309 ff.; Zeller, p. 104 ff.; Hilgenf.d. Glossolalie, p. 87 ff.), and may in nowise be put aside or placed in the background, if the state of the fact is to be derived entirelyfrom this narrative. If we further compareActs 10:46-47, theκαθὼς καὶ ἡμεῖς in that passage shows that theΛΑΛΕῖΝ ΓΛΏΣΣΑΙς, which there occurred at the descent of the Spirit on those assembled, cannot have been anything essentially different from the event in Acts 2. A corresponding judgment must in that case be formed as toActs 19:6. But we have to take our views of what theΓΛΏΣΣΑΙς ΛΑΛΕῖΝreally was,not from our passage, but from the older and absolutely authentic account of Paul in1 Corinthians 12:14; according to which it (see comm. on1 Corinthians 12:10) was a speaking in the form of prayer—which took place in the highest ecstasy, and required an interpretation for its understanding—and not a speaking in foreign languages. The occurrence in Acts 2. is therefore to be recognised, according to its historical import, as thephenomenon of the glossolalia (not as ahigher stage of it, in which the foreign languages supervened, Olshausen), which emergedfor the first time in the Christian church, and that immediately on the effusion of the Spirit at Pentecost,—a phenomenon which, in the sphere of the marvellous to which it belongs, was elaborated and embellished by legend into a speaking inforeign languages, and accordingly into an occurrence quiteunique, not indeed as to substance, but as to mode (comp. Hilgenfeld, p. 146), and far surpassing the subsequently frequent and well-knownglossolalia, having in fact no parallel in the further history of the church.[119] How this transformation—the supposition of which is by no means to be treated with suspicion as the dogmatic caprice of unbelief (in opposition to Rossteuscher, p. 125)—took place, cannot be ascertained. But the supposition very naturally suggests itself, that among the persons possessed by the Spirit, who werefor the most part Galileans (in the elaborated legend;all of them Galileans), there were also someforeigners, and that among these very naturally the utterances of the Spirit in theglossolalia found vent in expressions of their different national languages, and not in the Aramaic dialect, which was to them by nature a foreign language, and therefore not natural or suitable for the outburst of inspired ecstasy. If this firstglossolalia actually took place indifferent languages, we can explain how the legend gradually gave to the occurrence the form which it has in Luke, even with the list of nations, which specifies more particularly the languages spoken. Thata symbolical view of the phenomenon has occasioned the formation of the legend, namely, the idea of doing away with the diversity of languages which arose, Genesis 11, by way of punishment, according to which idea there was to be again in the Messianic timeεἷς λαὸς κυρίου καὶ γλῶσσα μία (Test. XII.Patr. p. 618), is not to be assumed (Schneckenburger, Rossteuscher, de Wette), since this idea as respects theγλῶσσα μία is not a N. T. one, and it would suit not the miracle ofspeaking, such as the matter appears in our narrative, but a miracle ofhearing, such as it has been interpreted to mean. The general idea of the universal destination of Christianity (comp. Zeller, Hilgenfeld) cannot but have been favourable to the shaping of the occurrence in the form in which it appears in our passage.

[117] Comp. Augustine,serm.9 : Loquebatur enim tunc unus homo omnibus linguis, quia locutura erat unitas ecclesiae in omnibus linguis.

[118] Svenson also, in theZeitschr. f. Luth. Th. u. K. 1859, p. 1 ff., arrives at the result of a miracle ofhearing.

[119] The conclusion of Wieseler (Stud. u. Krit. 1869, p. 118), that Luke, who, as a companion of Paul, must have been well acquainted with theglossolalia, could not have represented it as a speaking in foreign languages, is incorrect. Luke, in fact, conceives and describes the Pentecostal miraclenot as theglossolalia, which was certainly well known to him, as it was a frequent gift in the apostolic age, but as aquite extraordinary occurrence, such as it had been presented to him by tradition; and in doing so, he is perfectly conscious of thedistinction between it and the speaking with tongues, which he knew by experience. With justice Holtzmann also (in Herzog’sEncykl. XVIII. p. 689) sees in our narrative a laterlegendary formation, but froma time which was no longer familiar with the nature of the glossolalia. This latter statement is not to be conceded, partly because Luke wrote soon after the destruction of Jerusalem, and the source which he here made use of must have been still older; and partly because he was a friend of Paul, and as such could not have been otherwise than familiar with the nature of thatχάρισμα, which the apostle himself richly possessed.

The view which regards our event as essentiallyidentical with the glossolalia, but does not conceive the latter as a speaking in foreign languages, has been adopted by Bleek in theStud. u. Krit. 1829, p. 50 ff., whose explanation, however, ofhighly poetical discourse, combined withforeign expressions, agrees neither with theἑτέρ.γλ. generally nor withActs 2:8;Acts 2:11; by Baur in theTüb. Zeitschr. 1830, 2, p. 101 ff., who, however, explains on this accountἑτέρ.γλ. asnew spirit-tongues,[120] and regarded this expression as the original one, but subsequently in theStud. u. Krit. 1838, p. 618 ff., amidst a mixing up of different opinions, has acceded to the view of Bleek; by Steudel in theTüb. Zeitschr. 1830, 2, p. 133 ff., 1831, 2, p. 128 ff., who explains the Pentecostal event from thecorresponding tone of feeling which the inspired address encounteredin others,—a view which does not at all suit the concourse of foreign unbelievers in our passage; by Neander, who, however (4th edition, p. 28), idealizes the speaking of inspiration in our passage too indefinitely and indistinctly; by Wieseler in theStud. u. Krit. 1838, p. 743 ff., 1860, p. 117, who makes theἑρμηνεία γλωσσῶν be described according to the impression made upon the assembled Jews,—an idea irreconcilable with our text (Acts 2:6-12); by de Wette, who ascribes the transformation of theglossolalia in our passage to a reporter, who, from want of knowledge, imported into the traditional facts a symbolical meaning; by Hilgenfeld, according to whom the author conceived the gift of languages as a specialγένος of speaking with tongues; by van Hengel, who sees in the Corinthianglossolalia a degenerating of the original fact in our passage; and by Ewald (Gesch. d. apost. Zeitalt. p. 123 ff., comp.Jahrb. III. p. 269 ff.), who represents the matter as the first outburst of the infinite vigour of life and pleasure in life of the new-born Christianity, which took place not in words, songs, and prayers previously used, nor generally in previous human speech and language, but, as it were, in a sudden conflux and moulding-anew of all previous languages, amidst which the synonymous expressions of different languages were, in the surging of excitement, crowded and conglomerated, etc.,—a view in which the appeal to theἀββὰ ὁ πατήρ andμαρὰν ἀθά is much too weak to do justice to theἑτέραις γλώσσαις as the properpoint of the narrative. On the other hand, the view of the Pentecostal miracle as an actual though only temporary speaking in unacquired foreign languages, such as Luke represents it, has been maintained down to the most recent times (Baeumlein in theWürtemb. Stud. 1834, 2, p. 40 ff.; Bauer in theStud. u. Krit. 1843, p. 658 ff., 1844, p. 708 ff.; Zinsler,de charism.τοῦ γλ.λαλ. 1847; Englmann,v. d. Charismen, 1850; Maier,d. Glossalie d. apost. Zeitalt. 1855; Thiersch,Kirche im apost. Zeitalt. p. 67; Rossteuscher, Baumgarten, Lechler; comp. also Kahnis,vom heil. Geiste, p. 61 ff.,Dogmat. I. p. 517, Schaff, and others), a conception which Hofmann,Weissag. u. Erf. II. p. 206 ff., supports by the significance of Pentecost as the feast of the first fruits, and Baumgarten, at the same time, by its reference to the giving of the law. But by its side the procedure of the other extreme, by which the Pentecostal occurrence is entirely banished from history,[121] has been carried out in the boldest and most decided manner by Zeller (p. 104 ff.), to whom the origin of the narrative appears quite capable of explanation from dogmatic motives (according to the idea of the destination of Christianity for all nations) and typical views.[122]

καθώς,as, in which manner, i.e. according to the context: in which foreign language.

ἀποφθέγγεσθαι]eloqui (Lucian.Zeux. 1,Paras. 4, Plut.Mor. p. 405 E, Diog. L. i. 63), a purposely chosen word (comp.Acts 2:14,Acts 26:25) for loud utterance in the elevated state of spiritual gifts (1 Chronicles 25:1; Ecclus. Prolog. ii.; comp.ἀπόφθεγμα,Deuteronomy 32:2, alsoZechariah 10:2), also of false prophets,Ezekiel 13:19; Mich.Acts 5:12. See, generally, Schleusner,Thes. I. p. 417; also Valckenaer, p. 344; and van Hengel, p. 40.

[120] Which the Spirit has created for Himself as His organs, different from the usual human tongues. See also in hisneutest. Theol. p. 323 f.

[121] Weisse,evang. Gesch. II. p. 417 ff., identifies the matter even with the appearance of the risen Christ to more than 500 brethren, recorded in1 Corinthians 15:6!—Gfrörer,Gesch. d. Urchr. I. 2, p. 397 f., derives the origin of the Pentecostal history in our passage from the Jewish tradition of the feast of Pentecost as the festival of the law, urging the mythical miracle of tongues on Sinai (comp. also Schneckenburger, p. 202 ff.).

[122] Comp. also Baur, who finds here Paul’s idea of theλαλεῖν ταῖς γλώσσαις τῶν ἀνθρώπων καὶ τῶν ἀγγέλων,1 Corinthians 13:1, converted into reality. According to Baur,neutest. Theol. p. 322, there remains to us as theproper nucleus of the matter onlythe conviction, which became to the disciples and first Christians a fact of their consciousness, that the same Spirit by whom Jesus was qualified to be the Messiah had also been imparted to them, and was the specific principle—determining the Christian consciousness—of their fellowship. This communication of the Spirit did not, in his view, even occur at a definite point of time.

Acts 2:5 gives, asintroductory to what follows, preliminary information how it happened that Jews of so very diversified nationality were witnesses of the occurrence, and heard their mother-languages spoken by the inspired. Stolz, Paulus, and Heinrichs are entirely in error in supposing thatActs 2:5 refers to theλαλεῖν ἑτέρ.γλ., and that the sense is: “Neque id secus quam par erat, nam ex pluribus nationibus diverse loquentibus intererant isti coetui homines,” etc. The context, in fact, distinguishes theʼΙουδαῖοι and theΓαλιλαῖοι (so designated not as a sect, but according to their nationality), clearly in such a way that the former are members of the nation generally, and the latter are specially and exclusively Galileans. See also van Hengel, p. 9.

ἦσαν …κατοικοῦντες]they were dwelling, is not to be taken of mere temporaryresidence (Kuinoel, Olshausen, and others), but of thedomicile (Luke 13:4;Acts 7:48;Acts 9:22,al.; Plat.Legg. ii. p. 666 E, xii: p. 969 C) which they had taken up in the central city of the theocracy, and that from conscientious religious feelings as Israelites (henceεὐλαβεῖς, comp. onLuke 2:25). Comp. Chrys.:τὸ κατοικεῖν εὐλαβείας ἦν σημεῖον·πῶς;ἀπὸ τοσούτων γὰρ ἐθνῶν ὄντες καὶ πατρίδας ἀφέντες …ᾤκουν ἐκεῖ.

τῶν ὑπὸ τὸν οὐραν.]sc.ἐθνῶν,of the nations to be found under heaven (Bernhardy).

ὑπὸ τὸν οὐρανόν is classical,ὑπὸ τὸν ἥλιον. Comp. Plat.Ep. p. 326 C,Tim. p. 23 C. The whole expression has something solemn about it, and is, as a popular hyperbole, to be left in all its generality. Comp.Deuteronomy 2:25;Colossians 1:23.

Acts 2:6.Τῆς φωνῆς ταύτης] thissound, which, inasmuch asοὗτος points back to a more remote noun, is tobe referred to the wind-like rushing ofActs 2:2, to which alsoγενομ. carries us back. Comp.John 3:8. Luke represents the matter in such a way that this noise sounded forth from the house of meeting to the street, and that thereby the multitude were induced to come thither. In this case neither an earthquake (Neander) nor a “sympathy of the susceptible” (Lange) are to be called in to help, because there is no mention of either; in fact, thewonderful character of the noise is sufficient. Others, as Heinrichs, Kuinoel, Bleek, Schulz, Wieseler, Hilgenfeld, think that theloud speaking of the inspired is here meant. But in that case we should expect the plural, especially as this speaking occurred in different languages; and besides, we should be obliged to conceive this speaking as being strong, like a crying, which is not indicated inActs 2:4; therefore Wieseler would have it taken only as a definition oftime, which the aorist does not suit, because the speaking continues. Erasmus, Calvin, Beza, Castalio, Vatablus, Grotius, Heumann, and Schulthess takeφωνή in the sense ofφήμη. Contrary to theusus loquendi; even inGenesis 45:16 it is otherwise.

συνεχύθηmente confusa est (Vulgate), wasperplexed. Comp.Acts 9:22;1Ma 4:27;2Ma 10:30; Herod, 8:99; Plat.Ep. 7, p. 346 D; Diod. S. 4:62; Lucian.Nigr. 31.

εἷς ἕκαστος] annexes to the more indefiniteἤκουον the exact statement of the subject. Comp.John 16:32;Acts 11:29al.; Jacobs,ad Achill. Tat. p. 622; Ameis on Hom.Od. x. 397; Bernhardy, p. 420.

διαλέκτῳ] is here also notnational language, butdialect (see onActs 1:19), language in its provincial peculiarity. It is, as well as inActs 2:8, designedly chosen, because the foreigners who arrived spoke not entirely differentlanguages, but in part only differentdialects of the same language. Thus, for example, the Asiatics, Phrygians, and Pamphylians, respectively spoke Greek, but in different idioms; the Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, Persian, but also in different provincial forms. Therefore, the persons possessed by the Spirit, according to the representation of the text, expressed themselves in the peculiar local dialects of theἑτέρων γλωσσῶν. The view that theAramaic dialect was that in which all the speakers spoke (van Hengel), appears—fromActs 2:8; from the list of nations, which would be destitute of significance; fromπροσήλυτοι (Acts 2:10), which would be meaningless; and fromActs 2:11,[123] as well as from the opinions expressed inActs 2:12-13, which would be without a motive—as an exegetical impossibility, which is also already excluded byεἷς ἕκαστος inActs 2:6.

λαλούντων αὐτῶν] not, of course, that all spoke in all dialects, but that one spoke in one dialect, and another in another. Each of those who came together heard his peculiar dialect spoken by one or some of the inspired. This remark applies in opposition to Bleek, who objects to the common explanation ofλαλεῖν ἑτέρ.γλώσσαις, that each individual must have spoken in the different languages simultaneously. The expression is not evenawkward (Olshausen), as it expresses the opinion of the peoplecomprehended generally, and consequently even the summaryαὐτῶν is quite in order.

[123] Where neither in itself nor according to ver. 8 canταῖς ἡμετέραις γλώσσαις mean what van Hengel puts into it:as we do with our own tongues.

Acts 2:7-8.Ἐξίσταντο denotes theastonishment now setting in after the first perplexity,Acts 2:6;ἐθαύμαζον is the continuingwonder resulting from it. Comp.Mark 6:51.

ἰδού] to be enclosed within two commas.

πάντες οὗτοι κ.τ.λ.] pointing out:all the speakers present. It does not distinguish two kinds of persons, those who spoke and those who did not speak (van Hengel); but seeActs 2:4. The dislocation occasioned by the interposition ofεἰσίν brings theπάντες οὗτοι into more emphatic prominence.

Γαλιλαῖοι] They wondered to hear men, who were pureGalileans, speakParthian, Median, etc. This view, which takesΓαλ. in the sense of nationality, is required byActs 2:8;Acts 2:11, and by the contrast of the nations afterwards named. It is therefore foreign to the matter, with Herder, Heinrichs, Olshausen, Schulz, Rossteuscher, van Hengel, and older commentators, to bring into prominence the accessory idea of want of culture (uncultivated Galileans); and erroneous, with Stolz, Eichhorn, Kuinoel, and others, to considerΓαλ. as a designation of theChristian sect—a designation, evidence of which, moreover, can only be adduced from a later period. Augusti,Denkwürd. IV: pp. 49, 55. It is erroneous, also, to find the cause of wonder in the circumstance that the Galileans should have usedprofane languages for soholy an object (Kuinoel). So, in opposition to this, Ch. F. Fritzsche,nova opusc. p. 310.

καὶ πῶς]καί, as a simpleand, annexes the sequence of the sense;and (as they are all Galileans)how happens it that, etc.

ἡμεῖς ἀκούομεν ἕκαστος κ.τ.λ.]we on our part (in contrast to the speaking Galileans)hear each one, etc. That, accordingly,ἐγεννήθ. is to be understooddistributively, is self-evident from the connection (comp.ταῖς ἡμετ.γλώσσαις,Acts 2:11); therefore van Hengel[124] wrongly objects to the view of different languages, that the words would require to run:πῶς ἡμ.ἀκ.τ.ἰδ.διαλ.,ἐν ᾗ ἕκαστος ἐγεννήθη.

ἐν ᾗ ἐγεννήθ. designation of themother-tongue, with which one is, in thepopular way of expressing the matter,born furnished.

[124]l.c. p. 24 f.: “How comes it that we, no one excepted, hear them speak in the mother-tongue of our own people?” Thus, in his view, we are to explain the passage as the words stand in the text, and thus there is designated only theone mother-tongue—theAramaic.

Acts 2:9-11.Πάρθοι …Ἄραβες is a more exact statement, placed in apposition, of the subject ofἐγεννήθημεν. After finishing the list,Acts 2:11, Luke again takes up the verb already used inActs 2:8, and completes the sentence already there begun, but in such a way as once more to bring forward the important pointτῇ ἰδίᾳ διαλέκτῳ, only in a different and more general expression, byταῖς ἡμετ.γλώσσαις. Instead, therefore, of simply writingλαλούντ.αὐτ.τὰ μεγαλ.τ·Θεοῦ without this resumption inActs 2:11, he continues, after the list of nations, as if he had said inActs 2:8 merelyκαὶ πῶς ἡμεῖς.

Thelist of nations itself, which is arranged not without reference to geography, yet in a desultory manner (east, north, south, west), is certainly genuine (in opposition to Ziegler, Schulthess, Kuinoel), but is, of course, not to be considered, at any rate in its present order and completeness, as an original constituent part of the speech of the people (which would be psychologically inappropriate to the lively expression of strong astonishment), but as anhistorical notice, which was designedly interwoven in the speech and put into the mouth of the people, either already in the source whence Luke drew, or by Luke himself, in order to give very strong prominence to the contrast with the precedingΓαλιλαῖοι.

ʼΕλαμῖται, on the Persian Gulf, are so named in the LXX. (Isaiah 21:2); called by the GreeksʼΕλυμαῖοι. See Polyb. 5. 44. 9,al. The country is calledʼΕλυμαΐς, Pol. xxxi. 11. 1; Strabo, xvi. p. 744.

ʼΙουδαίαν] There is ahistorical reason whyJews should be also mentioned in this list, which otherwise names none but foreigners. A portion of those who had received the Spirit spoke Jewish, so that even the native Jews heard their provincial dialect. This is not at variance with theἑτέραις γλώσσαις, because the Jewish dialect differed in pronunciation from the Galilean, although both belonged to the Aramaic language of the country at that time; comp. onMatthew 26:73. Heinrichs thinks thatʼΙουδαίαν is inappropriate (comp. de Wette), and was only included in this specificationin fluxuorationis; while Olshausen holds that Luke included the mention of it from hisRoman point of view, and in consideration of hisRoman readers. What a high degree of carelessness would either suggestion involve! Tertull.c.Judges 1:7, readArmeniam. Conjectural emendations are:ʼΙδουμαίαν (Caspar Barth),ʼΙνδίαν (Erasmus Schmid),Βιθυνίαν (Hemsterhuis and Valckenaer). Ewald guesses thatSyria has dropped out after Judaea.

τὴν ʼΑσίαν] is here, as it is mentioned along with individual Asiatic districts, not the whole of Asia Minor, nor yet simplyIonia (Kuinoel), orLydia (Schneckenburger), to which there is no evidence that the name Asia was applied;but the whole western coast-region of Asia Minor (Caria, Lydia, Mysia), according to Plin.H. N. v. 28; see Winer,Realw., Wieseler, p. 32 ff.

τὰ μέρη τῆς Λιβύης τῆς κατὰ Κυρήνην] thedistricts of the Libya situated towards Cyrene, i.e.Libya Cyrenaica, orPentapolitana, Upper Libya, whose capital wasCyrene, nearly one-fourth of the population of which were Jews; see Joseph.Antt. xiv. 7. 2, xvi. 6. 1.[125] So many of the Cyrenaean Jews dwelt in Jerusalem, that they had there a synagogue of their own (Acts 6:9).

οἱ ἐπιδημοῦντες Ῥωμαῖοι] theRomans

Jews dwelling in Rome and the Roman countries of the West generally—residing (here in Jerusalem)as strangers (pilgrims to the feast, or for other reasons). Onἐπιδημ., as distinguished fromκατοικοῦντες, comp.Acts 17:21. Plat.Prot. p. 342 C:ξένος ὢν ἐπιδημήσῃ.Legg. viii. p. 8, 45 A; Dem. 1352. 19; Athen. viii. p. 361 F:οἱ Ῥώμην κατοικοῦντες καὶ οἱ ἐπιδημοῦντες τῇ πόλει. Asἐπιδημοῦντες, they are not properly included under the category ofκατοικοῦντες in the preparatoryActs 2:5, but are by zeugma annexed thereto.

ʼΙουδαῖοί τε καὶ προσήλυτοι is in apposition not merely toοἱ ἐπιδ.Ῥωμαῖοι (Erasmus, Grotius, van Hengel, and others), but, as is alone in keeping with the universal aim of the list of nations, to all those mentioned before inActs 2:9-10. Thenative Jews (ʼΙουδαῖοι) heard the special Jewish local dialects, which were their mother-tongues; theGentile Jews (προσήλυτοι) heard their different non-Hebraic mother-tongues, and that likewise in the different idioms of the several nationalities.

Κρῆτες καὶ Ἄραβες] are inaccurately brought in afterwards, as their proper position ought to have beenbeforeʼΙουδ.τε καὶ προσήλ., because that statement, in the view of the writer, held good ofall the nationalities.

τ.ἡμετέραις γλώσσαις]ἡμετ. has the emphasis of contrast: not with their language, butwith ours. Comp.Acts 2:8. Thatγλώσσ. comprehends also thedialectic varieties serving as a demarcation, is self-evident fromActs 2:6-10. The expressionτ.ἡμετ.γλ. affirms substantially the same thing as was meant byἑτέραις γλώσσαις inActs 2:4.

τὰ μεγαλεῖα τ.Θεοῦ]the great things of God (which God has done; comp.Psalm 71:19;Sir 17:8;Sir 18:3;Sir 33:8; 3Ma 7:22). It is the glorious things which God has providedthrough Christ, as is self-evident in the case ofthat assembly inthat condition. Not merely the resurrection of Christ (Grotius), but “tota hucοἰκονομία gratiae pertinet,” Calovius. Comp.Acts 10:46.

[125] See Schneckenburger,neutest. Zeitgesch. p. 88 ff.

Acts 2:12-13.Διηπόρ.] see onLuke 9:7.

τί ἂν θέλοι τοῦτο εἶναι;] The optative withἄν, in order to denote the hypothetically conceived possibility:What might this possibly wish to be? i.e. What might—if this speaking in our native languages, this strange phenomenon, is designed to have any meaning—be to be thought of as that meaning? Comp.Acts 17:18; Herm.ad Viger. p. 729; Bernhardy, p. 410 f. On the distinction of the sense withoutἂν, see Kühner,ad Xen. Anab. v. 7. 33. Comp. also Maetzner,ad Antiph. p. 130. Onθέλειν of impersonal things, see Wetstein and Stallbaum,ad Plat. Rep. p. 370 B.

ἕτεροι] another class of judges, consequently none of the impartial, of whom there was mention inActs 2:7-12, buthostile persons (in part, doubtless, of the hierarchical party) who drew from the well-known freer mode of life of Jesus and His disciples a judgment similar toLuke 7:34, and decided against the disciples.

διαχλευάζοντες]mocking; a stronger expression than the simple verb, Dem. 1221. 26; Plat.Ax. p. 364 B; Polyb. xvii. 4. 4, xxxix. 2. 13; used absolutely also, Polyb. xxx. 13. 12. The scoffers explain the enthusiasm of the speakers, which struck them as eccentric, and the use of foreign languages instead of the Galilean, as the effect of drunken excitement. Without disturbing themselves whence this foreign speaking (according to the historical position of the matter: this speaking with tongues) had come and become possible to the Galileans, they are arrested only by the strangeness of the phenomenon as it struck the senses, and, in accordance with their own vulgarity, impute it to the having taken too much wine. Comp.1 Corinthians 14:23. Thecontents of the speaking (van Hengel) would not, apart from thatform of utterance as if drunk with the Spirit, have given ground for so frivolous an opinion, but would rather have checked it. The judgment of Festus concerning Paul (Acts 26:24) is based on an essentially different situation.

γλεύκους]γλεῦκος τὸ ἀπόσταγμα τῆς σταφυλῆς πρὶν πατηθῇ, Hesychius.Job 32:19; Lucian.Ep. Sat. 22,Philops. 39. 65; Nic.Al. 184. 299. Comp.γλευκοπότης, Leon. Tar. 18; Apollonid. 10.

Acts 2:14-15.Σταθείς] as inActs 5:20,Acts 17:22,Acts 27:21;Luke 19:8;Luke 18:11. The introduction of the address (he stood up, etc.) issolemn.

σὺν τοῖς ἕνδεκα] thus Matthias is already included, and justly;Acts 2:32, comp. withActs 1:22. We may add that Grotius aptly remarks (although contradicted by Calovius): “Hic incipit (Petrus) nominis sui a rupe dicti meritum implere.”

ἀπεφθ.] as inActs 2:4 : but not as if now Peter also had begun to speakἑτέραις γλώσσ. (van Hengel).That speaking ispast when Peter and the eleven made their appearance; and then follows the simpleinstruction regarding it,intelligible to ordinary persons, uttered aloud and with emphasis.

κατοικοῦντες] quite as inActs 2:5. The nominative with the article, in order to express the imperative address. See Bernhardy, p. 67.

τοῦτο] namely, what I shall now explain to you.

Concerningἐνωτίζεσθαι (fromοὖς),auribus percipere, which is foreign to the old classical Greek, but in current use in the LXX. and the Apocrypha, see Sturz,Dial. Al. p. 166. In the N. T. only here. Comp.Test. XII. Patr. p. 520.

οὐ γάρ]γάρ justifies the preceding summons. Theοὗτοι,these there, does not indicate that the apostles themselves were not among those who spoke in a miraculous manner, as if the gift of tongues had been a lower kind of inspired speech (1 Corinthians 14:18-19; so de Wette, at variance withActs 2:4); but Peter, standing up with the eleven, places himself in the position of a third person, pointing to the whole multitude, whom he would defend, as their advocate; and as he did so, the reference of this apology to himself also and his fellow-apostles became self-evident in the application. This also applies against van Hengel, p. 64 f.

ὥρα τρίτη]about nine in the morning; so early in the day, and at this first of the three hours of prayer (see onActs 3:1), contemporaneously with the morning sacrifice in the temple, people are not drunk! Observe the sober, self-collected way in which Peter speaks.

Acts 2:16-17.But this (which has just taken place on the part of those assembled, and has been accounted among you as the effect of drunkenness)is the event, which is spoken of by the prophet Joel.

Joel 3:1-5 (LXX.Acts 2:28-31) is freely quoted according to the LXX. The prophet, speaking as the organ of God, describes theσημεῖα which shall directly precede the dawn of the Messianic period, namely first the general effusion of the fulness of the Holy Spirit, and then frightful catastrophes in heaven and on earth. This prophecy, Peter says, has now entered upon its accomplishment.

καὶ ἔσται]and it will be the case: quite according to the Hebrew (and the LXX.)וְהָיָה. Theκαί in the prophetic passage connects it with what precedes, and is incorporated in the citation.

ἐν ταῖς ἐσχάταις ἡμέραις] The LXX., agreeing with the Hebrew, has onlyμετὰ ταῦτα. Peter has inserted for it the familiar expressionאַחֲרִית הַיָּמִים (Isaiah 2:2;Micah 4:1, al.) by way of more precise definition (as Kimchi also gives it; see Lightfoot). This denotes the last days of the pre-Messianic period—the days immediately preceding the erection of the Messianic kingdom (which, according to the N. T. view, could not but take place by means of the speedily expected Parousia of Christ); see2 Timothy 3:1;Jam 5:3; and as regards the essential sense, alsoHebrews 1:1. Comp. Weiss, Petrin. Lehrbegr. p. 82 f.

ἐκχεῶ] a later form of the future. Winer, p. 74 [E. T. 91]. The outpouring figuratively denotes the copious communication.Titus 3:6;Acts 10:45. Comp.Acts 1:5, and see onRomans 5:5.

ἀπὸ τοῦ πνεύματός μου] deviating from the Hebrewאֶת־ריחִי. The partitive expression (Bernhardy, p. 222) denotes that something of the Spirit of God conceived as a whole—a special partial emanation for the bestowal of divers gifts according to the will of God (Hebrews 2:4; 1 Corinthians 12)—will pass over to every individual (ἐπὶ πᾶσαν σάρκα[126]).

πᾶσαν σάρκαevery flesh, i.e.omnes homines, but with the accessory idea ofweakness and imperfection, which the contrast of the highest gift of God, that is to be imparted to the weak mortal race, here presents. Comp.Romans 3:20;Galatians 2:16;1 Corinthians 1:29;Matthew 24:22;Luke 3:6. In Joelכָּל־בָּשָׂר certainly refers to the people ofIsrael, conceived, however, as thepeople of God, thecollective body of whom (not merely, as formerly, individual prophets) shall receive the divine inspiration. Comp.Isaiah 54:13;John 6:45. But as the idea of the people of God has its realization, so far as the history of redemption is concerned, in the collective body of believers on Christ without distinction of nations; so also in the Messianic fulfilment of that prophecy meant by Peter, and now begun, what the prophet has promisedto all flesh is not to be understood of the Jewish people as such (van Hengel, appealing toActs 2:39), but of all the true people of God,so far as they believe on Christ. The first Messianic effusion of the Spirit at Pentecost was thebeginning of this fulfilment, the completion of which is in the course of a progressive development that began at that time with Israel, and as respects its end is yet future, although this end was by Peter already expected as nigh.

καὶ προφητεύσουσιν …ἐνυπνιασθήσονται describes theeffects of the promised effusion of the Spirit.ΠΡΟΦΗΤΕΎΣΟΥΣΙΝ,afflatu divino loquentur (Matthew 7:22), is by Peter specially recognised as a prediction ofthat apocalyptically inspired speaking, which had just commenced with theἙΤΈΡΑΙς ΓΛΏΣΣΑΙς. This we may the more warrantably affirm, since, according to the analogy ofActs 19:6, we must assume that that speaking was not mereglossolalia in thestrict sense, but, in a portion of the speakers’prophecy. Comp. the spiritual speaking in Corinth.

οἱ υἱοὶ ὑμῶν καὶ αἱ θυγατέρες ὑμῶν]the male and female members of the people of God, i.e. all without exception. Peter sees this also fulfilled by the inspired members of theChristian theocracy, among whom, according toActs 1:14, there were at that time alsowomen.

ὉΡΆΣΕΙς …ἘΝΥΠΝΊΟΙς]visions in waking and in sleeping, as forms of theἀποκάλυψις of God, such as often came to the prophets. This prophetic distinction, Joel predicts, will, after the effusion of the Spirit in its fulness, becomecommon property. The fulfilment of this part of the prophecy had, it is true, not yet taken place among the members of the Christian people of God, but was still before them as a consequence of the communication of the Spirit which had just occurred; Peter, however, quotes the words as already fulfilled (Acts 2:16), because their fulfilment was necessarily conditioned by the outpouring of the Spirit, and was consequently already in idea included in it.

ΝΕΑΝΊΣΚΟΙ …ΠΡΕΣΒΎΤΕΡΟΙ belong likewise, as the preceding clause (ΥἹΟῚ …ΘΥΓΑΤΈΡΕς), to the representation of the collective body as illustratedperμερισμόν. Theὁράσεις correspond to the lively feelings ofyouth;ἘΝΎΠΝΙΑ, to the lesser excitability ofmore advanced age; yet the two are to be taken, not as mutually exclusive, but after the manner ofparallelism.

The verb, with the dative of the cognate noun, ishere (ἐνυπνίοις ἐνυπνιασθ.,they will dream with dreams; comp.Joel 3:1) aHebraism, and does not denote, like the similar construction in classic Greek, a more precise definition or strengthening of the notion conveyed by the verb (Lobeck,Paral. p. 524 f.).

[126] The impersonality of the Spirit is not thereby assumed (in opposition to Weiss,bibl. Theol. p. 136), but the distribution of the gifts and powers, which are represented as a partial effusion of the Spirit on individuals. For the personality of the Spirit, comp. especially the saying of Peter,Acts 5:3.

Acts 2:18. A repetition of the chief contents ofActs 2:17, solemnly confirming them, and prefixing the persons concerned.

καί γε]and indeed,Luke 19:42; Herm.ad Viger. p. 826. It seldom occurs in classical writers without the two particles being separated by the word brought into prominence or restricted, in which case, however, there is also a shade of meaning to be attended to; see Klotz,ad Devar. p. 319.

We must not explain theδούλους μου and theδούλας μου with Heinrichs and Kuinoel, in accordance with the original text, which has noμου, ofservile hominum genus, nor yet with Tychsen (Illustratio vaticinii Joel iii. Gott. 1788) of thealienigenae (because slaves were wont to be purchased from abroad): both views are at variance with theμου, which refers the relation of serviceto God as the Master. It is therefore the male and female members of the people of God (according to the prophetic fulfilment: of theChristian people of God) that are meant, inasmuch as they recognise Jehovah as their Master, and serve Him:my male and female worshippers; comp. the Hebrewעֶבֶד יְהוָּה. In the twofoldμου Peter agrees with the translators of the LXX.,[127] who must have had another reading of the original before them.

[127] So much the less ought Hengstenberg,Christol. I. p. 402, to have imported into this encliticμου what is neither found in it nor relevant: “on servants and handmaidsof men, who are at the same timemy servants and handmaids, and therefore in spiritual things are quite on a level with the free.” Similarly Bengel, and recently Beelen (Catholic) in hisCommentar. in Acta ap. ed. 2, 1864, who appeals inappropriately toGalatians 3:27 f.

Acts 2:19-20.After this effusion of the Spirit I shall bring about (δώσω, as atMatthew 24:24)catastrophes in heaven and on earth (the latter are mentioned at once inActs 2:19, the former inActs 2:20)as immediate heralds of the Messianic day. Peter includes in his quotation this element of the prophecy, because its realization (Acts 2:16), conditioned by the outpouring of the Spirit which necessarily preceded it, presented itself likewise essentially as belonging to the allotted portion of theἔσχαται ἡμέραι. The dreadful events could not but now—seeing that the effusion of the Spirit preceding them had already commenced—be conceived as inevitable and very imminent; and this circumstance could not but mightily contribute to the alarming of souls and their being won to Christ. As toτέρατα andσημεῖα, see onMatthew 24:24;Romans 15:19.

αἷμα …καπνοῦ contains theσημεῖα ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, namely,bloodshed (war, revolt, murder) andconflagration. Similar devastations belonged, according to the later Jewish Christology also, to thedolores Messiae. See onMatthew 24:6-7. “Cum videris regna se invicem turbantia, tunc expectes vestigia Messiae;”Beresh. rabb. sec. 41. The reference toblood-rain, fiery meteors, and pillars of smoke arising from the earth (de Wette, comp. Kuinoel), is neither certainly in keeping with the original text of the prophecy, nor does it satisfy the analogy of Matthew 24

ἀτμίδα καπνοῦ]vapour of smoke (ἀτμίς, Plat.Tim. p. 87 E, yet in classical writers more usuallyἀτμός, is the more general idea). Comp. on such combinations, Lobeck,Paral. p. 534.

Acts 2:20. Meaning:the sun will become dark, and the moon appear bloody. Comp. onMatthew 24:29; alsoIsaiah 13:10;Ezekiel 32:7.

πρὶν ἐλθεῖν]ere there shall have come. See Klotz,ad Devar. p. 728 f.

τὴν ἡμέραν κυρίου]i.e. according to the sense of the prophetic fulfilment of the words:the day of Christ, namely of His Parousia. Comp. onRomans 10:13. But this is not, with Grotius, Lightfoot, and Kuinoel, following the Fathers, to be considered as identical withthe destruction of Jerusalem (which belongs to theσημεία of the Parousia, to thedolores Messiae). See onMatthew 24:29.

τὴν μεγάλην κ.ἐπιφανῆ]the great (κατʼ ἐξοχήν, fraught with decision, comp.Revelation 16:14)and manifest, i.e. which makes itself manifest before all the world as that which it is. Comp. the frequent use ofἐπιφάνεια for the Parousia (2 Thessalonians 2:8,al.). The Vulgate aptly renders:manifestus. Instead ofἐπιφανῆ, the Hebrew has הַנּו̇רָא, terribilis, which the LXX., deriving fromראה, has incorrectly translated byἐπιφανῆ, as also elsewhere; see Biel and Schleusn. Thes. s.v. But on this account the literal signification ofἐπιφαν. need not be altered here, where the text follows the LXX.

Acts 2:21.And every one who shall have invoked the name of the Lord,—this Peter wishes to be understood, according to the sense of the prophetic fulfilment, of the invocation ofChrist (relative worship: see onActs 7:59;Romans 10:12;Php 2:10;1 Corinthians 1:2); just as he would have theσωθήσεται understood, not of any sort of temporal deliverance, but of thesaving deliverance of the Messianic kingdom (Acts 4:12,Acts 15:11), which Jesus on His return will found; and hence he must now (Acts 2:22-36) demonstrate Jesus the crucified and risen and exalted one, as the Lord and Messiah (Acts 2:36). And how undauntedly, concisely, and convincingly he does so! A first fruit of the outpouring of the Spirit.

Acts 2:22.Τούτους] likeτούτο,Acts 2:14, the wordswhichfollow. See Kühner,ad Xen. Mem. i. 2. 3,ad Anab. ii. 5. 10.

τὸν Ναζωραῖον is, in the mouth of the apostle, only the current more precise designation of the Lord (comp.Acts 3:6,Acts 4:10), not used in the sense of contempt (comp.Acts 6:14,Acts 24:5) for the sake of contrast to what follows, and possibly as a reminiscence of the superscription of the cross (Beza and others), of which there is no indication in the text (such as perhaps:ἄνδρα δέ).

ἄνδρα ἀπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ ἀποδεδειγμ.]a man on the part of God approved, namely, in his peculiar character,as Messiah,ἀπό stands neither here nor elsewhere forὑπό, but denotes the going forth of the legitimation from God (divinitus), Joseph.Antt. vii. 14. 5; Poppo,ad Thuc. i. 17. 1; Buttm.neut. Gr. p. 280 [E. T. 326].

εἰς ὑμᾶς]in reference to you, in order that He might appear to you as such,for you.

δυνάμ.κ.τέρασι κ.σημείοις] a rhetorical accumulation in order to the full exhaustion of the idea (Bornem.Schol. in Luc. p. xxx.), as regards thenature of the miracles,their appearance, and theirdestination. Comp.Acts 2:19;2 Thessalonians 2:9;2 Corinthians 12:12;Hebrews 2:4.

ἐν μέσῳ ὑμῶν]in the midst of you, so that it was beheld jointly by you all.

Acts 2:23.Τοῦτον] an emphatic repetition. See Schaef.Melet. p. 84; Dissen,ad Dem. de cor. p. 225. There is to be no parenthesis before it.This one … delivered up, ye have by the hand of lawless men[128]affixed and made way with:Acts 10:39;Luke 22:2;Luke 23:32. By theἈΝΌΜΟΙ are to be understoodGentiles (1 Corinthians 9:21;Romans 1:14), and it is here more especially theRoman soldiers that are meant, by whose hand Christ was affixed (nailed to the cross), and thereby put to death. OnἜΚΔΟΤΟΝ, comp. Drac. 26, and examples from Greek writers in Raphel and Kypke, also Lobeck,Paral. p. 531. It refers to the delivering up of Jesus to the Jews, which took place on the part ofJudas. This was no work of men, no independent success of the treachery (which would, in fact, testify against the Messiahship of Jesus!), but it happenedin virtue of the fixed (therefore unalterable)resolve and (in virtue of the)foreknowledge of God. Onβουλή, comp. the HomericΔιὸς δʼ ἐτελείετο βουλή,Il. i. 5,Od. xi. 297.

πρόγνωσις is hereusually taken as synonymous withΒΟΥΛΉ; but against all linguistic usage.[129] Even in1 Peter 1:2, comp.Acts 2:20, the meaningpraescientia (Vulgate) is to be retained. See generally onRomans 8:29. God’sβουλή (comp.Acts 4:28) was,that Jesus was to delivered up, and themode of it was present to Him in Hisprescience, which, therefore, is placedafter theβουλή. Objectively, no doubt, the two are not separate in God, but the relation is conceived of after the analogy of the action of the human mind.

Thedative is, as inActs 15:1, that in which theἔκδοτον has its ground. Without the divineβουλὴ κ.τ.λ. it would not have taken place.

The question, How Peter could say to those present:Ye have put Him to death, is solved by the remark that the execution of Christ was a public judicial murder, resolved on by the Sanhedrim in the name of the whole nation, demanded from and conceded by the Gentiles, and accomplished under the direction of the Sanhedrim (John 19:16); comp.Acts 3:13 f. The view of Olshausen, that the death of Christ was a collective act ofthe human race, which had contracted a collective guilt, is quite foreign to the context.

[128]διὰ χειρός (see the critical remarks) is here not to be taken, like בְּיַד, for the mere per (see Fritzsche, ad Marc. p. 199), but, as it is a manual action that is spoken of, in its concrete, literal meaning. It belongs to vivid rhetorical delineation. Comp. Dorville, ad Charit. p. 273.

[129] This reason must operate also against Lamping’s (Pauli de praedestinat. decreta, 1858, p. 102 ff.) defence of the common explanation, in which he specifies, as the distinction betweenβουλή andπρόγνωσις, merely this: “illud adumbrat Dei voluntatem, hoc inde profectum decretum.” It is arbitrary, with Holsten,z. Ev. d. Paul. u. Pet. p. 146, to referβουλή not to the saving will, but merely to the will as regards destiny. See, in opposition to this,Acts 3:18, where the suffering of Christ is the fulfilment ofdivine prophecy; comp.Acts 8:32 f.,Acts 10:43.

Acts 2:24.Τὰς ὠδῖνας] Peter most probably used the common expression from the O. T.:חֶבְלֵי מָוֶת, snares of death, in which theθάνατος personified is conceived as a huntsman laying a snare.Psalm 18:5 f.,Psalm 116:3. See Gesen. Thes. I. p. 440. The LXX. erroneously translates this expression asὠδῖνες θανάτου, misled byחֵבֶל, dolor (Isaiah 66:7), in the pluralחֲבָלִים, used particularly of birth-pangs. See the LXX.Psalm 18:5;2 Samuel 22:6. But Luke—and this betrays the use of a Hebrew source directly or indirectly—has followed the LXX., and has thus changed the Petrine expression vincula mortis into dolores mortis. The expression of Luke, who withὠδῖνες could think of nothing else than the only meaning which it has in Greek, gives the latter, and not the former sense. In the sense of Peter, therefore, the words are to be explained: after he has loosed the snares of death (with which death held him captive); but in the sense of Luke: after he has loosed the pangs of death. According to Luke (comp. onπρωτότοκος ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν,Colossians 1:18), the resurrection of Jesus is conceived as birth from the dead. Death travailed (ὁ θάνατος ὤδινε κατέχων αὐτόν, Chrys.) in birth-throes even until the dead was raised again. With this event these pangs ceased, they were loosed; and because God has made Christ alive, God has loosed the pangs of death. Onλύσας, see LXX.Job 39:3; Soph. O. C. 1612, El. 927; Aelian. H. A. xii. 5. Comp. Plat. Pol. ix. p. 574 A:μεγάλαις ὠδῖσί τε καὶ ὀδύναις συνέχεσθαι. The aorist participle is synchronous withἀνέστησε. To understand the death-pangs of Christ, from which God freed Him “resuscitando eum ad vitam nullis doloribus obnoxiam” (Grotius), is incorrect, because the liberation from the pains of death has already taken place through the death itself, with which the earthly work of Christ, even of His suffering, was finished (John 19:30). Quite groundless is the assertion of Olshausen, that in Hellenistic Greekὠδῖνες has not only the meaning of pains, but also that of bonds, which is not at all to be vouched by the passages in Schleusn. Thes. V. p. 571.

καθότι: according to the fact, that; see onLuke 1:7.

οὐκ ἦν δύνατον which is afterwards proved from David. It was thus impossible in virtue of the divine destination attested by David. Other reasons (Calovius: on account of the unio personalis, etc.) are here far-fetched.

κρατεῖσθαι ὑπʼ αὐτοῦ] Theθάνατος could not but give Him up; Christ could not be retained by death in its power, which would have happened, if He, like other dead, had not become alive again and risen to eternal life (Romans 6:9). Onκρατεῖσθαι ὑπό, to be ruled by, comp.4Ma 2:9; Dem. 1010. 17. By His resurrection Christ has done away death as a power (2 Timothy 1:10;1 Corinthians 15:25 f.).

Acts 2:25.Εἰς αὐτόν] so that the words, as respects their fulfilment,apply to Him. See Bernhardy, p. 220.

The passage is fromPsalm 16:8 ff., exactly after the LXX. David, if the Psalm, which yet certainly is later, belonged to him, or the other suffering theocrat who here speaks, is, in what he affirms of himself, a prophetic type of theMessiah; what he says of the certainty that he should not succumb to the danger of death, which threatened him, has received its antitypical fulfilment in Christ by His resurrection from the dead. Thishistorical Messianicfulfillment of the Psalm justified the apostle in its Messianicinterpretation, in which he has on his side not rabbinical predecessors (see Schoettgen), but the Apostle Paul (Acts 13:35 f.). Theπροωρώμην κ.τ.λ., as the LXX. translatesשִׁוּיחִי, is, according to this ideal Messianic understanding of the Psalm, Christ’s joyful expression of His continued fellowship with God on earth, since in fact (ὅτι) God is by His side protecting and preserving Him; I foresaw the Lord before my face always, i.e. looking before me with the mind’s glance (Xen. Hell. iv. 3. 16; otherwise,Acts 21:9), I saw Jehovah always before my face.

ἐκ δεξιῶν μου ἐστίν] namely, as protector and helper, asπαραστάτης (Xen. Cyr. iii. 3, 21). Concerningἐκ δεξιῶν, from the right side out, i.e. on the right of it, see Winer, p. 344 [E. T. 459]. The figurative element of the expression is borrowed from courts of justice, where the advocates stood at the right of their clients,Psalm 109:31.

ἵνα μὴ σαλευθῶ] without figure: that I may remain unmoved in the state of my salvation. On the figurative use—frequent also in the LXX., Apocr., and Greek authors (Dorville, ad Char. p. 307)—ofσαλεύειν, comp.2 Thessalonians 2:2.

Acts 2:26.Therefore my heart rejoiced and my tongue exulted. The aorists denote an act of the time described byπροωρώμην κ.τ.λ., the joyful remembrance of which is here expressed.

ἡ καρδία μου,לִכִּי: the heart, the centre of personal life, is also the seat of the moral feelings and determinations of the will: Delitzsch, Psych. p. 248 ff.

Instead ofἡ γλῶσσά μου, the Hebrew hasכְבוֹדִי, i.e. my soul (Psalm 7:6;Psalm 30:12, et al.; see Schoettgen, p. 415), in place of which the LXX. either found a different reading or gave a free rendering.

ἔτι δὲ καὶ ἡ σάρξ μου κ.τ.λ.] but moreover also my flesh (body) shall tabernacle, that is, settle itself by way of encampment, on hope, by which the Psalmist expresses his confidence that he shall not perish, but continue in life—while, according to Peter, from the point of view of the fulfilment that has taken place in Christ, these wordsεἰς Χριστόν (Acts 2:25) prophetically express that the body of Christ will tarry in the grave on hope, i.e. on the basis of the hope of rising from the dead. Thus what is divinely destined for Christ

His resurrection—appears in poetic mould as the object of the hope of His body.

ἔτι δὲ καί] Comp.Luke 14:26;Acts 21:28; Soph.O. R. 1345.

ἐπʼ ἐλπίδι] as inRomans 4:18.

Acts 2:27. What now the Psalmist further says according to the historical sense:For Thou wilt not leave my soul to Hades (i.e. Thou wilt not suffer me to die in my present life-peril),and wilt not give Thy Holy One (according to the Ketîbh of the original:Thy holy ones, the plural of category, comp. Hupfeldin loc.)to see corruption—is by Peter, as spokenεἰς Χριστόν, taken in accordance with the prophetical meaning historically fulfilled in Him:Thou wilt not forsake my soul in Hades (after it shall have come thither; see Kühner, § 622; Buttm.neut. Gr. p. 287 [E. T. 333]), but by the resurrection wilt again deliver it,[130]and wilt not suffer Thy Holy One (the Messiah)to share corruption, i.e. according to the connection of the sense as fulfilled,putrefaction (comp.Acts 13:34 ff.).[131] Instead ofΔΙΑΦΘΟΡΆΝ, the original hasשַׁחַת,a pit, which, however, Peter, with the LXX., understood asδιαφθορά, and accordingly has derived it not fromשׁוּחַ, but fromשָׁחַת,διαφθείρω; comp.Job 17:14.

Onδώσεις, comp.Acts 10:40. The meaning is: Thou wilt not cause, that, etc. Often so also in classical writers from Homer onward. As toἰδεῖν in the sense of experiencing, comp. onLuke 2:26.

[130] This passage is adictum probans for the abode of the soul of Christ in Hades, but it contains no dogmatic statement concerning thedescensus ad inferos in the sense of the church. Comp. Güder,Lehre von d. Erscheinung Christi unter d. Todten, p. 30; Weiss,Petrin. Lehrbegr. p. 233 f.

[131] After this passage, compared with ver. 31, no further discussion is needed to show how unreasonably it has been taken for granted (see especially Holsten,z. Ev. d. Paul. u. Petr. p. 128 ff.) that the early church conceived the resurrection of Christ as aμετάβασις εἰς ἕτερον σῶμα, entirely independent of the dead body of our Lord. How much are the evangelical narratives of the appearances of the risen Christ, in which the identity of His body has stress so variously laid on it, at variance with this opinion! Comp.Acts 10:41.

Acts 2:28.Thou hast made known to me ways of life; Thou wilt fill me with joy in presence of Thy countenance, meant by the Psalmist of the divine guidance in saving his life, and of the joy which he would thereafter experience before God, refers, according to its prophetic sense, as fulfilled in Christ, to Hisresurrection, by which God practically made known to him ways to life, and to hisstate of exaltation in heaven, where he is in the fulness of blessedness with God.

μετὰ τοῦ προσώπου σου]אֶת־פַּנֶיךָ, in communion with Thy countenance (seen by me). Comp.Hebrews 9:24.

Acts 2:29.Μετὰ παῤῥησίας]frankly and freely, without reserve; for the main object was to show off a passage honouring David, that it had received fulfilment in a higher and prophetical sense inanother. Bengel well remarks: “Est igitur hoc locoπροθεραπεία, praevia sermonis mitigatio.”

David is calledὁ πατριάρχης as the celebrated ancestor of the kingly family, from which the nation expected their Messiah.

ὅτι]that (notfor). Peter wishes to say of David what isnotorious, and what it isallowable for him to say on account of this very notoriety; therefore withἐξόν there is not to be supplied, as is usually done,ἔστω, butἐστί (ἔξεστι).

ἐν ἡμῖν] David was buried at Jerusalem.Nehemiah 3:16; Joseph. Antt. vii. 15. 3, xiii. 8. 4,Bell. Jud. i. 2. 5. Inτὸ μνῆμα αὐτοῦ,his sepulcher, there is involved, according to the context, as self-evident: “cum ipso Davidis corpore corrupto; molliter loquitur,” Bengel.

Acts 2:29-31. Proof that David in this passage of his Psalm has prophetically made known the resurrection of Christ.

Acts 2:30-32.Οὖν] infers from the previousκαὶ τὸ μνῆμα αὐτοῦ …ταύτης,whence it is plain that David in the Psalm,l.c., as a prophet and divinely conscious progenitor of the future Messiah, has spokenof the resurrection of Christ as the one who should not be left in Hades, and whose body should not decay.

καὶ εἰδώς] see2 Samuel 7:12.

ἐκ καρποῦ τ.ὀσφύος αὐτοῦ]sc.τινά. On the frequent supplying of the indefinite pronoun, see Kühner, II. p. 37 f.; Fritzsche,Conject. I. 36. The well-known Hebrew-like expressionκαρπὸς τῆς ὀσφύος αὐτοῦ (Psalm 132:11) presupposes the idea of the uninterruptedmale line of descent from David to Christ. Comp.Hebrews 7:5;Genesis 35:11;2 Chronicles 6:9; and see remark afterMatthew 1:18.

καθίσαι ἐπὶ τ.θρόνον αὐτοῦ]to sit on His throne (Xen.Anab. ii. 1. 4), namely, as theMessiah, who was to be the theocratic consummator of the kingdom of David (Mark 11:10;Acts 15:16). Comp.Luke 1:32.

προϊδών]prophetically looking into the future. Comp.Galatians 3:8.

ὅτι οὐ κατελ.]since He, in fact, was not left, etc. Thus hashistory proved that David spoke prophetically of the resurrection of theMessiah. The subject ofκατελείφθη κ.τ.λ. is not David (Hofm.Schriftbew. II. l, p. 115)—which no hearer, afterActs 2:29, could suppose—butὁ Χριστός; and what is stated of Him in the words of the Psalm itself is the triumph of their historical fulfilment, a triumph which is continued and concluded inActs 2:32.

τοῦτον τὸν Ἰησοῦν] has solemn emphasis;this Jesus, no other than just Him, to whom, as the Messiah who has historically appeared, David’s prophecy refers.

οὗ] neuter:whereof. See Bernhardy, p. 298.

μάρτυρες] in so far as we, His twelve apostles, have conversed with the risen Christ Himself. Comp.Acts 1:22,Acts 10:41.

Acts 2:33.Οὖν] namely, in consequence of the resurrection, with which the exaltation is necessarily connected.

τῇ δεξιᾷ τοῦ Θεοῦ]by the right hand, i.e. by the power ofGod, v. 31;Isaiah 63:12. Comp. Vulgate, Luther, Castalio, Beza, Bengel, also Zeller, p. 502, and others. The rendering:to the right hand of God, however much it might be recommended as regards sense byActs 2:34, is to be rejected, seeing that the construction of simple verbs of motion with the dative of the goal aimed at, instead of withπρός orεἰς, belongs in classical Greek only to the poets (see the passages from Homer in Nägelsb. p. 12, ed. 3, and, besides, Erfurdt,ad Antig. 234; Bernhardy, p. 95; Fritzsche,Conject. I. p. 42, the latter seeking to defend the use as legitimate), and occurs, indeed, in late writers[132] (see Winer, p. 201 f.[E. T. 268 f.]), but is without any certain example in the N. T., often as there would have been occasion for it; forActs 21:16 admits of another explanation, andRevelation 2:16 is not at all a case in point. In the passage of the LXX.Jdg 11:18, deemed certain by Fritzsche,τῇ γῇ Μωάβ (if the reading is correct) is to be connected, not withἦλθεν, but as appropriating dative withἀπὸ ἀνατολῶν ἡλίου. ConcerningΚύρῳ ἰέναι, Xen.Anab. i. 2. 26, see Bornemann, ed. Lips. The objection, thatby the right hand of God is here inappropriate (de Wette and others), is not tenable. There is somethingtriumphant in the element emphatically prefixed, which is correlative toἀνέστησεν ὁ Θεός (Acts 2:32);God’s work of power was, as the resurrection, so also the exaltation. Comp.Php 2:9. A Hebraism, or an incorrect translation ofלְמִינִי (Bleek in the Stud. u. Krit. 1832, p. 1038; de Wette; Weiss,Petr. Lehrbegr. p. 205), has been unnecessarily and arbitrarily assumed.

τήν τε ἐπαγγ.τ.ἁγ.πν.λαβ.παρὰ τ.πατρ.] contains that which followed upon theὙΨΩΘΕΊς, and hence is not to be explained with Kuinoel and others: “after He had received the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father;” but: “after He had received the (in the O. T.)promised (Acts 1:4)Holy Spirit from His Father. See onLuke 24:49.

τοῦτο is either, with Vulgate, Erasmus, Beza, Kuinoel, and others, to be referred to theπνεῦμα ἅγιον, so that theὅ corresponds to the explanatoryid quod (Kühner, § 802. 2), or—which, on account of theὍ annexed toΤΟῦΤΟ, is more natural and more suitable to the miraculous character—it is, with Luther, Calvin, and others, to be taken as an independent neuter:He poured forth (just now)this, what ye (in effectu)see and hear (in the conduct and speech of those assembled). Accordingly, Peter leaves it to his hearers, after what had previously been remarked (τήν τε ἐπαγγ.…πατρός), themselves to infer that what was poured out was nothing else than just theπνεῦμα ἅγιον.[133]

The idea that the exalted Jesus in heaven receives from His Father and pours forth the Holy Spirit, is founded on such instructions of Christ asJohn 15:26;John 16:7. Comp. onActs 1:4.

[132] The dative of interest (e.g.ἔρχομαί σοι, I come for thee) has often been confounded with it. Comp. Krüger, § 48. 9. 1.

[133] It cannot, however, be said that “the first congregation of disciples receives this giftwithout baptism” (Weiss,bibl. Theol. p. 150). Those persons possessed by the Spirit were, in fact, all confessors of Christ, and it must in their case be supposed that they had already received baptism in the lifetime of our Lord, to which conclusion vv. 38, 41 point.

Acts 2:34-35.Γάρ] The fundamental fact of the previous statement, namely, theτῇ δεξιᾷ Θεοῦ ὑψωθείς, has still to beproved, and Peter proves this also from a saying of David, which has not received its fulfilment in David itself.

λέγει δὲ αὐτός]but he himself says, but it is his own declaration; and then followsPsalm 110:1, where Daviddistinguishes from himself Him who is to sit at the right hand of God,as His Lord (τῷ κυρίῳ μου). This King, designated byτῷ κυρίῳ μου of the Psalm, although it does not proceed from David (see onMatthew 22:43), is, according to the Messianic destination and fulfilment of this Psalm,[134] Christ, who is Lord of David and of all the saints of the O. T.; and Hisoccupying the throne (sit Thou at my right hand) denotesthe exaltation of Christ to the glory and dominion of the Father, whoseσύνθρονος He has become;Hebrews 1:8;Hebrews 1:13;Ephesians 1:21 f.

[134] Which is not to be identified with its historical meaning. See Hupfeldin loc., and Diestel in theJahrb. f. d. Th. p. 562 f.

Acts 2:36. The Christological aim of the whole discourse, which, as undoubtedly proved after what has been hitherto said (οὖν), is emphatically at the close set down for recognition as the summary of the faith now requisite. In this caseἀσφαλῶς (unchangeably) is marked with strong emphasis.

πᾶς οἶκος ʼΙσρ.] without the article, becauseοἶκ.ʼΙσρ. has assumed the nature of a proper name. Comp. LXX.1 Kings 12:23;Ezekiel 45:6,al. Winer, p. 105 [E. T. 137]. The. wholepeople is regarded as thefamily of their ancestor Israel (בֵּית יְשְׂרָאֵל).

καὶ κύριον αὐτὸν κ.Χριστόν] him Lord (ruler generally, comp.Acts 10:36) as well as also Messiah. The former general expression, according to which He isὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων,Romans 9:5, andκεφαλὴ ὑπὲρ πάντα,Ephesians 1:22, the latter special, according to which He is theσωτὴρ τοῦ κόσμου, v. 31,John 4:42, andκεφαλὴ τῆς ἐκκλησίας,Ephesians 1:22,Colossians 1:18, together characterize the Messianic possessor of the kingdom, which God has made Christ to be by His exaltation, seeing that He had in His state of humiliation emptied Himself of the power and glory, and was only reinstated into them by His exaltation. Previously He was indeed likewise Lord and Messiah, but in the form of a servant; and it was after laying aside that form that He became such in complete reality.[135] It is not to be inferred from such passages as this andActs 4:27;Acts 10:38;Acts 17:31 (de Wette), that the Book of Acts represents the Messianic dignity of Jesus asan acquisition in time; against which view evenπαρὰ τοῦ πατρός in our passage (Acts 2:33), compared with the confession inMatthew 16:16,John 16:30, is decisive, to say nothing of the Pauline training of Luke himself. Comp. alsoActs 2:34.

αὐτόν is not superfluous, butτοῦτον τὸν ʼΙησοῦν is a weighty epexegesis, which is purposely chosen in order to annex the strongly contrastingὃν ὑμεῖς ἐσταυρώσατε (comp.Acts 3:13,Acts 7:52), and thus to impart to the whole address a deeply impressive conclusion. “Aculeus in fine,” Bengel.

[135] Comp. Weiss,bibl. Theol. p. 134 f.

Acts 2:37.But after they heard it (what was said by Peter)they were pierced in the heart.

κατανύσσειν, in the figurative sense ofpainful emotion, which penetrates the heart as ifstinging, is not found in Greek writers (who, however, useνύσσειν in a similar sense); but see LXX. Ps. 108:16:κατανενυγμένον τῇ καρδίᾳ,Genesis 34:7, whereκατενύγησαν is illustrated by the epexegesis:καὶ λυπηρὸν ἦν αὐτοῖς σφόδρα.Sir 14:1;Sir 12:12;Sir 20:21;Sir 47:21; Susann. 11 (of the pain of love). Compare alsoLuke 2:35. The hearers were seized with deep pain in their conscience on the speech of Peter, partly for the general reason that He whom they now recognised as the Messiah was murdered by the nation, partly for the more special reason that they themselves had not as yet acknowledged Him, or had been even among His adversaries, and consequently had not recognised and entered upon the only way of salvation pointed out by Peter.

On the figure ofstinging, comp. Cic.de orat. iii. 34 (of Pericles): “ut in eorum mentibus, qui audissent, quasiaculeos quosdam relinqueret.”

τί ποιήσομεν]what shall we do? (Winer, p. 262 [E. T. 348].) The inquiry of a need of salvation surrendering itself to guidance. An opposite impression to that made by the discourse of Jesus in Nazareth,Luke 4:28.

ἄνδρες ἀδελφοί] an affectionate and respectful address from broken hearts already gained. Comp. onActs 1:16. “Non ita dixerunt prius,” Bengel.

Acts 2:38. What a definite and complete answer and promise of salvation! Theμετανοήσατε demands thechange of ethical disposition as the moral condition of being baptized, which directly and necessarily brings with it faith (Mark 1:15); the aorist denotes the immediate accomplishment (comp.Acts 3:19,Acts 8:22), which is conceived as the work of energetic resolution. So the apostles began to accomplish it,Luke 24:47.

ἐπὶ τῷ ὀνόματι ʼΙησ Χριστοῦ]on the ground of the name, so that the name “Jesus Messiah” as the contents of your faith and confession, is that on which the becoming baptized rests.Βαπτίζ. is only here used withἐπί; but comp. the analogous expressions,Luke 21:8;Luke 24:47;Acts 5:28;Acts 5:40;Matthew 24:5,al.

εἰς denotes theobject of the baptism, which is the remission of the guilt contracted in the state beforeμετάνοια. Comp.Acts 22:16;1 Corinthians 6:11.

καὶ λήψ.]καίconsecutivum. After reconciliation, sanctification; both are experienced in baptism.

τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος] this is theδωρεά itself.Hebrews 6:4;Acts 10:45;Acts 11:17.

Acts 2:39. Proof of the precedingλήψεσθε κ.τ.λ.:for to you belongs the promise (concerned);yours it is, i.e.you are they in whom the promise (of the communication of the Spirit) is to be realized.

τοῖς εἰς μακράν]to those who are at a distance, that is, to all the members of the Jewish nation, who are neither dwellers here at Jerusalem, nor are now present as pilgrims to the feast, both Jews and Hellenists. Comp. also Baumgarten. Others, with Theophylact, Oecumenius, Erasmus, Calvin, Piscator, Grotius, Wolf, Bengel, Heinrichs, de Wette, Lange, Hackett, also Weiss,Petr. Lehrbegr. p. 148, andbibl. Theol. p. 149, explain it of theGentiles. Comp.Ephesians 2:13. But, although Peter might certainly conceive of the conversion of the Gentiles, according toIsaiah 2:2;Isaiah 49:1,al., in the way of their coming to and passing through Judaism, yet the mention of the Gentiles here (observe the emphatically precedingὑμῖν) would be quite alien from the destination of the words, which were intended to prove theλήψεσθε κ.τ.λ. ofActs 2:38. The conversion of theGentiles does not here belong to thematter in hand. Beza, whom Casaubon follows, understood it oftime (2 Samuel 7:19, comp. the classicalοὐκ ἐς μακράν):longe post futuros, but this is excluded by the very conception of the nearness of the Parousia.

As to the expression ofdirection,εἰς μακρ., comp. onActs 22:5.

ὅσους ἂν προσκαλ.κ.τ.λ.] contains the definition ofπᾶσι τοῖς εἰς μακράν:as many as God shall have called to Himself, namely, by the preaching of the gospel, by the reception of which they, as members of the true theocracy, will enter into Christianfellowship with God, and will receive the Spirit.

Acts 2:40. Observe the change of theaoristδιεμαρτύρατο (see the critical notes) andimperfectπαρεκάλει: headjured them (1 Timothy 5:21;2 Timothy 2:14;2 Timothy 4:1, often also in classical writers), after which followed thecontinued exhortation, the contents of which was:Become saved from this (the now living)perverse generation away, in separating yourselves from them by theμετάνοια and baptism.

σκολιός]crooked, in a moral sense =ἀδικός. Comp. onPhp 2:15.

Acts 2:41.Μὲν οὖν] namely, in consequence of these representations of the apostle. We may translate either:they then who received his word (namely,σώθητε κ.τ.λ.), comp.Acts 8:4 (so Vulgate, Luther, Beza, Bengel, Kuinoel, and others); or,they then (those indicated inActs 2:37),after they received his word, etc., comp.Acts 1:6,Acts 8:25,Acts 15:3 (so Castalio, de Wette). The latter is correct, because, according to the former view of the meaning, there must have been mention previously of a reception of the word, to which reference would here be made. As this is not the case, those present in general are meant, as inActs 2:37, andἀποδεξάμενοι τὸν λόγον αὐτοῦ (Acts 2:40) stands in aclimactic relation toκατενύγησαν (Acts 2:37).

προσετέθησαν]were added (Acts 2:47;Acts 5:14;Acts 11:24), namely, tothe fellowship of the already existing followers of Jesus, as is self-evident from the context.

ψυχαί]persons, according to the Hebrewנֶפֶשּׁ,Exodus 1:5;Acts 7:14;1 Peter 3:20; this use is not classical, since, in the passages apparently proving it (Eur. Androm. 612, Med. 247, al.; see Kypke, II. p. 19),ψυχή means, in the strict sense, soul (life).

The text does not affirm that the baptism of the three thousand occurred on the spot and simultaneously, but only that it took place during the course of that day (τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἐκείνῃ). Observe further, that their baptism was conditioned only by theμετάνοια and by faith on Jesus as the Messiah; and, accordingly, it had their further Christian instruction not as a preceding, but as a subsequent, condition (Acts 2:42).

now describes what the reception of the three thousand had as its consequence; what they, namely the three thousand and those who were already believers before (for thewhole body is the subject, as is evident from the idea ofπροσετέθησαν), as members of the Christian community under the guidance of the apostles perseveringly did

Acts 2:42 now describes what the reception of the three thousand had as its consequence; what they, namely the three thousand and those who were already believers before (for thewhole body is the subject, as is evident from the idea ofπροσετέθησαν), as members of the Christian community under the guidance of the apostles perseveringly did.[136] The development of the inner life of the youthful church follows that great external increase. First of all:they were perseveringly devoted to the instruction (2 Timothy 4:2;1 Corinthians 14:6)of the apostles, they were constantly intent on having themselves instructed by the apostles.

τῇ κοινωνίᾳ] is to be explained of themutual brotherly association which they sought to maintainwith one another. Comp. onPhp 1:5. See also Weiss,bibl. Theol. p. 141 f., and Ewald. The same in substance with theἀδελφότης,1 Peter 2:17;1 Peter 5:9. It is incorrect in Wolf, Rosenmüller, and others to refer it toΤῶΝ ἈΠΟΣΤΌΛΩΝ, and to understand it of living in intimate associationwith the apostles. Forκαὶ τῇ κοινων. is, as well as the other three, an independent element, not to be blended with the preceding. Therefore the views of others are also incorrect, who either (Cornelius a Lapide and Mede as quoted by Wolf) take the following (spurious)ΚΑΊ asexplicativum (et communione, videlicet fractione panis et precibus), or suppose aἓν διὰ δυοῖν (Homberg) after the Vulgate:et communicatione fractionis panis, so thatτῇ κοινων. would already refer to the Agapae. Recently, following Mosheim (de rebus Christ, ante Const. M. p. 114), the explanation of thecommunication of charitable gifts to the needy has become the usual one. So Heinrichs, Kuinoel, Olshausen, Baumgarten, also Löhe,Aphorism. p. 80 ff., Harnack,christl. Gemeindegottesd. p. 78 ff., Hackett, and others.[137] But this special sense must have been indicated by a special addition, or have been undoubtedly suggested by the context, as inRomans 15:26;Hebrews 13:16; especially asκοινωνία does not in itself signifycommunicatio, but communio; and it is only from the context that it can obtain the idea of fellowship manifesting itself bycontributions in aid, etc., which is not here the case.

τῇ κλάσει τοῦ ἄρτου]in the breaking of their bread (τοῦ ἀ.). By this is meantthe observance of common evening-meals (Luke 24:30), which, after the manner of the last meal of Jesus, they concluded with the Lord’s Supper (Agapae,Judges 1:12). The Peschito and several Fathers, as well as the Catholic Church,[138] with Suicer, Mede, Wolf, Lightfoot, and several older expositors, arbitrarily explain it exclusively of theEucharist; comp. also Harnack,l.c. p. 111 ff.Such a celebration is of later origin; the separation of the Lord’s Supper from the joint evening meal did not take place at all in the apostolic church, 1 Corinthians 11. The passages,Acts 20:7;Acts 20:11,Acts 27:35, are decisive against Heinrichs, who, after Kypke, explains the breaking of breadof beneficence to the poor (Isaiah 58:7), so that it would be synonymous withκοινωνία (but see above).

ΤΑῖς ΠΡΟΣΕΥΧΑῖς] The plural denotes the prayers of various kinds, which were partly new Christian prayers restricted to no formula, and partly, doubtless, Psalms and wonted Jewish prayers, especially having reference to the Messiah and His kingdom.

Observe further in general thefamily character of the brotherly union of the first Christian church.

[136] With the spuriousness of the secondκαί (see the critical note), the four particulars are arrangedin pairs.

[137] That the moral nature of theκοινωνία expresses itself also in liberality, is correct in itself, but is not here particularly brought forward, any more than other forms of its activity. This in opposition to Lechler,apost. Zeit. p. 285.

[138] This Church draws as an inference from our passage the historical assertion:Sub una specie panis communicaverunt sancti in primitiva ecclesia.Confut. Conf. Aug. p. 543 of my edition of theLibri Symbolici. See, in opposition to this view, the striking remarks of Casaubon in theExercitatt. Anti-Baron. p. 466. Beelen still thinks that he is able to make good the idea of thedaily unbloody sacrifice of the mass by the appendedτ.προσευχ.!

Acts 2:43.But fear came upon every soul, and many miracles, etc. Luke in these words describes: (1) what sort of impression the extraordinary result of the event of Pentecost made generally upon the minds (πάσῃ ψυχῇ, Winer, p. 147 [E. T. 194]) of those who did not belong to the youthful church; and (2) the work of the apostles after the effusion of the Spirit. Thereforeτέ is the simple copula, and not, as is often assumed, equivalent toγάρ.

ἐγίνετο] (see the critical note) is in both cases thedescriptive imperfect. Comp., moreover, on the expression, Hom.Il. i. 188:Πηλείωνι δʼ ἄχος γένετο, xii. 392,al. Elsewhere, instead of the dative, Luke hasἐπί with the accusative, orἔμφοβος γίνεται.

φόβος, as inMark 4:41,Luke 1:63;Luke 7:16, etc.,fear, dread, which are wont to seize the mind on a great and wonderful, entirely unexpected, occurrence. Thisφόβος, occasioned by the marvellous result which the event of Pentecost together with the address of Peter had produced, operatedquasi freno (Calvin), in preventing the first internal development of the church’s life from being disturbed by premature attacks from without.

διὰ τῶν ἀποστ.] for the worker, thecausa efficiens, wasGod. Comp.Acts 2:22;Acts 4:30;Acts 15:12.

Acts 2:44-45. But (δέ, continuative) as regards thedevelopment of the church-life, which took place amidst thatφόβος without and this miracle-working of the apostles, all wereἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό. This, as inActs 1:15,Acts 2:1, is to be understood as having alocal reference, and not with Theophylact, Kypke, Heinrichs, and Kuinoel:de animorum consensu, which is foreign to N. T. usage.They were accustomed all to be together. This is not strange, when we bear in mind the very natural consideration that after the feast many of the three thousand—of whom, doubtless, a considerable number consisted of pilgrims to the feast—returned to their native countries; so that the youthful church at Jerusalem does not by any means seem too large to assemblein one place.

καὶ εἶχον ἅπαντα κοινά]they possessed all things in common, i.e. all things belonged to all, were a common good. According to the more particular explanation which Luke himself gives (καὶ τὰ κτήματα …εἶχε, comp.Acts 4:32), we are to assume not merely in general adistinguished beneficence, liberality, and mutual rendering of help,[139] or “a prevailing willingness to place private property at the disposal of the church” (de Wette, comp. Neander, Baum garten, Lechler, p. 320 ff., also Lange,apost. Zeitalt. I. p. 90, and already Mosheim,Diss, ad hist. eccl. pertin. II. p. 1 ff., Kuinoel, and others); buta real community of goods in the early church at Jerusalem, according to which the possessors were wont to dispose of their lands and their goods generally, and applied the money sometimes themselves (Acts 2:44 f.,Acts 4:32), and sometimes by handing it to the apostles (Acts 5:2), for the relief of the wants of their fellow-Christians. See already Chrysostom. But for the correct understanding of this community of goods and its historical character (denied by Baur and Zeller), it is to be observed: (1)It took place only in Jerusalem. For there is no trace of it in any other church; on the contrary, elsewhere the rich and the poor continued to live side by side, and Paul in his letters had often to inculcate beneficence in opposition to selfishness andπλεονεξία. Comp. alsoJam 5:1 ff.;1 John 3:17. And this community of goods at Jerusalem helps to explain the great and general poverty of the church in that city, whose possessions naturally—certainly also in the hope of the Parousia speedily occurring—were soon consumed. As the arrangement is found in no other church, it is very probable that the apostles were prevented by the very experience acquired in Jerusalem from counselling or at all introducing it elsewhere. (2)This community of goods was not ordained as a legal necessity, but was left to the free will of the owners. This is evident, fromActs 5:4;Acts 12:12. Nevertheless, (3) in the yet fresh vigour of brotherly love (Bengel onActs 4:34 aptly says: “non nisi summo fidei et amoris flori convenit”), it was,in point of fact, general in the church of Jerusalem, as is proved from this passage and from the express assurance atActs 4:32;Acts 4:34 f., in connection with which the conduct of Barnabas, brought forward inActs 4:36, is simply a concrete instance of the general practice. (4)It wasnot an institution borrowed from the Essenes[140] (in opposition to Grotius, Heinrichs, Ammon, Schneckenburger). For it could not have arisen without the guidance of the apostles; and to attribute to them any sort of imitation of Essenism, would be devoid alike of internal probability and of any trace in history, as, indeed, the first fresh form assumed by the life of the church must necessarily be conceived as a development from within under the impulse of the Spirit. (5) On the contrary, the relation arose very naturally, and that from within, asa continuation and extension of that community of goods which subsisted in the case of Jesus Himself and His disciples, the wants of all being defrayed from a common purse. It was the extension of this relation to the whole church, and thereby, doubtless, the putting into practice of the commandLuke 12:33, but in a definite form. That Luke here and inActs 4:32;Acts 4:34 expresses himselftoo strongly (de Wette), is an arbitrary assertion. Schneckenburger, in theStud. u. Krit. 1855, p. 514 ff., and Ewald have correctly apprehended the matter as an actual community of goods. Comp. Ritschl,altkath. Kirche, p. 232.

τὰ κτήματα]the landed possessions (belonging to him). See v. 1; Xen.Oec. 20. 23; Eustath.ad Il. vi. p. 685.ὑπάρξεις:possessions in general, Polyb. ii. 17. 11;Hebrews 10:34, and Bleekin loc.

αὐτα]it, namely,the proceeds. The reference is involved in the preceding verb (ἐπίπρασκον). Comp.Luke 18:22;John 12:5. See generally, Winer, p. 138 [E. T. 181 f.].

καθότι ἄ τις χρείαν εἶχε]just as any one had need,ἄν with theindicative denotes: “accidisse aliquid non certo quodam tempore, sed quotiescunque occasio ita ferret.” Herm.ad Viger. p. 820. Comp.Acts 4:35;Mark 6:56; Krüger,Anab. i. 5. 2; Kühner,ad Mem. i. 1. 16; and see on1 Corinthians 12:2.

[139] Comp. also Hundeshagen in Herzog’sEncykl. III. p. 26. In this view the Pythagoreanτὰ τῶν φίλων κοινά might be compared with it (Rittersh.ad Porphyr. Vit. Pyth. p. 46).

[140] See Joseph.Bell. Jud. ii. 8. 3 f. The Pythagoreans also had a community of goods. See Jamblich.Vita Pyth. 168. 72; Zeller, p. 504. See, in opposition to the derivation from Essenism, von Wegnern in theZeitschr. f. histor. Theol. XI. 2, p. 1 ff., Ewald and Ritschl.

Acts 2:46.καθʼ ἡμέραν]daily. See Bernhardy, p. 241.

Onπροσκαρτερεῖν ἐν,to be diligent in visiting a place, comp. Susann. 6.

ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ] as confessors of the Messiah of their nation, whose speedy appearance in glory they expected, as well as in accordance with the example of Christ Himself, and with the nature of Christianity as the fulfilment of true Judaism, they could of course have no occasion for voluntarily separating themselves from the sanctuary of their nation; on the contrary, they could not but unanimously (ὁμοθυμ.) consider themselves bound to it; comp.Luke 24:53.

κλῶντες ἄρτον]breaking bread, referring, as inActs 2:42, to the love-feasts. The articlemight stand as inActs 2:42, but is here not thought of, and therefore not put. It would mean:their bread.

κατʼ οἶκον] Contrast toἐν τῷ ἱερῷ; hence:at home, in meetings in their place of assembly, where they partook of the meal (perhaps in detachments). Comp.Philemon 1:2. So most commentators, including Wolf, Bengel, Heinrichs, Olshausen, de Wette. But Erasmus, Salmasius, and others explain itdomatim, from house to house. So also Kuinoel and Hildebrand. Comp.Luke 8:1;Acts 15:21;Matthew 24:7. But there is nowhere any trace of holding the love-feasts successively in different houses; on the contrary, according toActs 1:13, it must be assumed that the new community had at the very first a fixed place of assembly. Luke here places side by side thepublic religious conduct of the Christians and theirprivate association; hence afterἐν τῷ ἱερῷ the expressκατʼ οἶκον was essentially necessary.[141]

μετελάμβανον τροφῆς]they received their portion of food (comp.Acts 27:33 f.), partook of their sustenance. Plat.Polit. p. 275 C:παιδείας μετειληφέναι καὶ τροφῆς.

Acts 2:46 is to be paraphrased as follows:In the daily visiting of the temple, at which they attended with one accord, and amidst daily observance of the love-feast at home, they wanted not sustenance, of which they partook in gladness and singleness of heart.

ἐν ἀγαλλιάσει] this is the expression of the joy in the Holy Spirit, as they partook of the daily bread, “fructus fidei et character veritatis,” Bengel. And still in the erection of the kingdom believers areἄμωμοι ἐν ἀγαλλιάσει,Judges 1:24. This is, then, the joy oftriumph.

ἀφελότης]plainness, simplicity, true moral candour. Dem. 1489. 10 :ἀφελὴς καὶ παῤῥησίας μεστός. The word is not elsewhere preserved in Greek, butἀφέλεια is (Ael.V. H. iii. 10,al.; Polyb. vi. 48. 4).

[141] Observe how, on the one hand, the youthful church continued still bound up with the national cultus, but, on the other hand, developed itself at the same time as a separate society, and in this latter development already put forth the germs of the distinctively Christian cultus (comp. Nitzsch,prakt. Theol. I. p. 174 ff., 213 ff.). The further evolution and independent vital power of this cultus could not but gradually bring about the severance from the old, and accomplish that severance in the first instance in Gentile-Christian churches.

Acts 2:47.Αἰνοῦντες τ.Θεόν] is not to be restricted togiving thanks at meals, but gives prominence generallyto the whole religious frame of spirit; which expressed itself inthe praises of God (comp. de Wette). This is clearly evident from the second clause of the sentence,καὶ ἔχοντες …λαόν, referring likewise to their relationin general. That piety praising God, namely, and this possession of the general favour of the people, formed together the happy accompanying circumstances, under which they partook of their bodily sustenance with gladness and simple heart.

πρὸς ὅλ.τ.λαόν] possessing favour (on account of their pious conduct)in their relation to the whole people.[142] Comp.Romans 5:1.

ὁ κύριος]i.e. Christ, as the exalted Ruler of His church.

τούς σωζομένους]those who were being saved, i.e. those who (by their very accession to the church)became saved from eternal perdition so as to partake in the Messianic kingdom, Comp.Acts 2:40.

[142] To refer this remark, on account of the later persecution, to the idealizing tendency and to legendary embellishment (Baur), is a very rash course, as between this time and the commencement of persecution a considerable period intervenes, and the popular humour, particularly in times of fresh excitement, is so changeable. Schwanbeck also, p. 45, denies the correctness of the representation, which he reckons among the peculiarities of the Petrine portion of the book.