Chú giải Kinh Thánh

Verse 1. - Was now come for was fully come, A.V.; all together for with one accord, A.V. and T.R. When the day of Pentecost was now come; literally, when the day of Pentecost - i.e., of the fiftieth day - was in the course of being completed. The fiftieth day (reckoned from the end of the 16th of Nisan, on which Jesus was crucified) was actually come, but was not ended (comp. Luke 9:11). All together; ὁμοῦ for ὁμοθυμαδόν: but ὁμοθυμαδόν - a favorite word in the Acts (Acts 4:24, note) - seems preferable to ὁμοῦ, which occurs only in St. John. In one place (see Acts 1:15, note). The purpose, doubtless, of their coming together was for prayer, as in Acts 1:14; and the third hour (9 a.m., ver. 15), the hour of offering the morning sacrifice, was close at hand (comp. Acts 3:1 and Luke 1:10).

Verse 2. - From heaven a sound for a sound from heaven, A.V.; as of the rushing of a for as of a rushing, A.V. All the house; showing that it was in a private dwelling, not in the temple (as in Acts 3:1) that they were assembled (see Acts 2:46). Perhaps the word "church" (ὁ κυριακὸς οῖκος) derives its use from these early meetings of the disciples in a house, as distinguished from the temple (τὸ ἱερὸν).

Verse 3. - Tongues parting asunder for cloven tongues, A.V.; each one for each, A.V. There appeared. They had heard the sound, now they see the tongues of fire, and then they feel the Spirit working in them (see ver. 34). Tongues parting asunder. The idea of the cloven tongue, i.e. a tongue parted into two, which is thought to have been the origin of the miter, is not suggested either by the Greek or by the circumstances, and is clearly a mistaken one. Διαμεριζόμεναι means distributing themselves or being distributed. From the central apparition, or rather place of sound, they saw issuing forth many several tongues, looking like small flames of fire, and one such tongue sat upon each one of the brethren or disciples present. Each one. That Chrysostom is right ('Hom.'4.) in interpreting the each one of this verse of the hundred and twenty, and not of the twelve, and the ell in ver. 4 of all present besides the apostles, may be demonstrated. For not only must the all of ver. 1 refer to the same company as was described in the preceding chapter (vers. 15-26), but it is quite clear in ver. 15 of this chapter that Peter and the eleven (ver. 14), standing up separate from the body of the disciples, say of them, "These are not drunken, as ye suppose;" which is a demonstration that those of whom they thus spoke had been speaking with tongues (see also Acts 10:44). St. Augustine, too, says that the hundred and twenty all received the Holy Spirit. To the same effect Meyer, Wordsworth, Alford (who adds, "Not the hundred and twenty only, but all the believers in Christ then congregated at Jerusalem;" so also Lange). Farrar well remarks, "It was the consecration of a whole Church to be all of them a chosen generation, a royal priest- hood, a holy nation, a peculiar people" ('Life of St. Paul,' Acts 5.). Lange says, "Not only the apostles, but all the disciples, were filled with the Holy Ghost. There is a universal priesthood of all believers, and the Holy Ghost is the anointing which consecrates and qualifies for this priesthood" ('On the Acts,' Clark's edit., p. 67).

Verse 4. - Spirit for Ghost, A.V. Other tongues (1 Corinthians 14:21; Isaiah 28:11); the same as the "new tongues" of Mark 16:17. St. Paul speaks of them as "the tongues of men and of angels" (1 Corinthians 13:1), and as "kinds of tongues" (1 Corinthians 12:10). His habitual phrase is "speaking in [or with] a tongue [or tongues]" (1 Corinthians 14:2, 4-6, etc.), and the verb is always λαλεῖν, as here. What these tongues were on this occasion we are explicitly informed in vers. 6, 8, and 11. They were the tongues of the various nationalities present at the feast - Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Phrygians, Arabians, etc. This is so clearly and so distinctly stated that it is astonishing that any one should deny it who accepts St. Luke's account as historical. The only room for doubt is whether the speakers spoke in these divers languages, or the hearers heard in them though the speakers spoke in only one tongue. But not to mention that this is far more difficult to imagine, and transfers the miracle from those who had the Holy Spirit to those who had it not, it is against the plain language of the text, which tells us that "they began to speak with other tongues," and that "every man heard them speaking in his own language." "Speaking," said they, "in our own tongues the mighty works of God." There may, indeed, have been something ecstatic besides in these utterances, but there is no reference to such made either by St. Luke or by the audience whose words he reports. The narrative before us does not hint at any after use of the gift of tongues for missionary purposes. In Acts 10:46; Acts 11:15-17; Acts 19:6, as well as in the passages above referred to in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, the speaking with tongues is always spoken of - often in connection with prophecy - simply as a gift and a manifestation (1 Corinthians 12:7) of the power of the Holy Spirit. In this case and in Acts 10:46 the subject-matter of the utterance is the greatness of God's works; τὰ μεγαλεῖα τοῦ Θεοῦ μεγαλυνόντων τὸν Θεὸν. In 1 Corinthians 14:2 it is" mysteries;" in ver. 15, "prayers and psalms;" in ver. 16 it is "blessing" and "thanksgiving" (εὐλογία and εὐχαριστία). But nowhere, either in Holy Scripture or in the Fathers of the three first centuries, is the gift of tongues spoken of in connection with preaching to foreign nations (see Alford's just remarks). Farrar ('Life of St. Paul,' vol. 1. pp. 98-101) takes the same view, but is much less distinct in his conception of what is meant here by speaking with tongues. He adheres to the view of Schneckenburger, that "the tongue was, from its own force and significance, intelligible equally to all who heard it;" he agrees with the dictum of Neander that "any foreign languages which were spoken on this occasion were only something accidental, and not the essential element of the language of the Spirit." He says, "The voice they uttered was awful in its range, in its tones, in its modulations, in its startling, penetrating, almost appalling power; the words they spoke were exalted, intense, passionate, full of mystic significance; the language they used was not their ordinary and familiar tongue, but was Hebrew, or Greek, or Latin, or Aramaic, or Persian, or Arabic, as some overpowering and unconscious impulse of the moment might direct... and among these strange sounds... there were some which none could interpret, which rang on the air like the voice of barbarous languages, and which ... conveyed no definite significance beyond the fact that they were reverberations of one and the same ecstasy." The writer seems to suggest that when any real language was spoken it was one more or less known previously by the speaker, and that in other cases it was no language at all, only thrilling emotional sounds. Renan's view of the day of Pentecost is a carious specimen of rationalistic interpretation. "One day when the brethren were come together there was a tempest. A violent wind burst open the windows, and the sky was one sheet of fire. In that climate tempests are often accompanied by an extraordinary amount of electric light. The atmosphere is on all sides furrowed with jets of flame. On this occasion, whether the electric fluid actually passed through the room, or whether the faces of all present were suddenly lit up by an extremely bright flash of lightning, all were convinced that the Holy Spirit had entered their assembly, and had sat upon the head of each in the shape of a tongue of fire... In these moments of ecstasy, the disciple possessed by the Spirit uttered sounds 'inarticulate and incoherent, which the hearers fancied were the words of a strange language, and in their simplicity tried to interpret They listened eagerly to the medley of sounds, and explained them by their own extemporaneous thoughts. Each of them had recourse to his own native patois to supply some meaning to the unintelligible accents, and generally succeeded in affixing to them the thoughts that were uppermost in his own mind" ('Les Apotres,' pp. 66-68). Elsewhere (pp. 64, 65) he suggests that the whole conception of speaking with tongues arose from the anticipation on the part of the apostles that great difficulty would arise in propagating the gospel from the impossibility of learning to speak the necessary languages. The solution with some was that, under the ecstasy caused by the Holy Spirit, the hearers would be able to translate what they heard into their own tongue; others rather thought that by the same power the apostles would be able to speak any dialect they pleased at the moment. Hence the conception of the day of Pentecost as described by St. Luke! Meyer, again, fully admits, as "beyond all doubt," that St. Luke intended to narrate that the persons possessed by the Spirit spoke in foreign languages previously unknown by them; but adds that "the sudden communication of a facility of speaking foreign languages is neither logically possible nor psychologically and morally conceivable" (a pretty bold assertion); and therefore he sets down St. Luke's account of what occurred as "a later legendary formation," based upon the existing γλωσσολαλία. Zeller, traveling a little further on the same road, comes to the conclusion that "the narrative before us is not based on any definite fact" (p. 205). Leaving, however, these fanciful varieties of incredulous criticism, and interpreting the statements of this chapter by the later spiritual gifts as seen in the Church of Corinth, we conclude that the" tongues" were sometimes "tongues of men," foreign languages unknown to the speakers, and of course unintelligible to the hearers unless any were present, as was the case on the day of Pentecost, who knew the language; and sometimes languages not of earth but of heaven, "tongues of angels." But there is no evidence whatever of their being mere gibberish as distinct from language, or being language coined at the moment by the Holy Ghost. All that St. Paul says to the Corinthians is fully applicable to any language spoken when there were none present who understood it. The significance of the miracle seems to be that it points to the time when all shall be one in Christ, and shall all speak and understand the same speech; and not only all men, but men and angels, "the whole family in heaven and earth," "things in the heavens and things upon the earth" all gathered together in one in Christ. It may also not improbably have been used occasionally, as it was on the day of Pentecost, to convey doctrine, knowledge, or exhortation, to foreign people; but there is no distinct evidence that this was the case.

Verse 5. - Now for and, A.V. ; from for out of, A.V. Dwelling; either Jews come up for the feast, or perhaps rather domiciled at Jerusalem from motives of piety.

Verse 6. - And when this sound (φωνή) was heard for now when this was noised abroad A.V., which the words cannot mean; speaking for speak, A.V. This sound. The question still remains whether the sound (φωνή) refers to the sound (ἤχος) of the rushing mighty wind mentioned in ver. 2, or to the voices of those who spake with tongues. If the last, we should rather have expected sounds or voices in the plural; and it is further in favor of the former that μενῆς τῆς φωνῆς ταύτης seems to take up the ἐγένετο ἤχος of ver. 2. The word φωνή is applied to πνεῦμα in John 3:8. Nor is it likely, at first sight, that the disciples in the house where they were sitting should have spoken loud enough to attract the notice of people outside. Whereas the sound of a rushing mighty wind, sufficient (as in Acts 3:31) to shake the house, would naturally he heard by passers-by. On the other hand, however, φωνή seems to point decisively to the human voice (see its use, 1 Corinthians 14:7-10).

Verse 7. - Saying for saying one to another, A.V. and T.R. Amazed (ἐξίσταντο; see Acts 8:9, note). Galilaeans; describing merely their nationality. The Galilaean accent was peculiar and well known (see Mark 14:70; Luke 22:59 Matt, 26:73).

Verse 8. - Language for tongue, A.V. Language (διαλέκτῳ, as in Acts 1:19). It only occurs in the New Testament in the Acts, and may mean either language or dialect. Here it is properly rendered language, and is synonymous with γλώσσαις in ver. 11.