Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Acts 2:11

Acts 2:11. Cretes and Arabians. In Crete the Jews were very numerous. Arabia, bordering on the Holy Land, of course counted among its inhabitants many Israelites. No sufficient reason, however, can be assigned for these two names occurring at the end of the list. Hackett considers them ‘an after-thought' of the apostle. Some reason, doubtless, of which we are ignorant, moved St. Luke to place them in their present position in the catalogue. No various readings here give us any clue to the solution of the difficulty. Ewald calls attention to the omission of ‘Syria from the catalogue. Jerome reads ‘Syria' instead of ‘Judea' (Acts 2:9). The apparent omission can be explained by concluding that the Syrian strangers spoke and understood ‘Aramaic' or Greek, in both of which tongues some of the inspired ones addressed the bystanders.

The wonderful works of God. We can imagine the glorious exposition of the Spirit to these children of Israel, to these converts to Judaism from many lands and strange peoples, which, in words sweeter and wiser than man had ever listened to before, described the grand mission of Israel, which was, to keep the torch of the knowledge of God ever burning through long centuries in a great heathen world; and this, in spite of sin and error, bitterly punished, had been done. And from the mission of Israel, now ended, we can conceive the Spirit passing and telling out to the awe-struck, entranced listeners the story of ‘the wonderful works of God' done and purposed to be done in Christ the Messiah, speaking of the blood of Jesus which shall wash away all sin of Jew and Gentile. Surely we may assume that in some of these Pentecostal utterances, at least, the outlines of the arguments of the great epistles (to the Romans and Hebrews, for instance) were first sketched out.

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Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Acts 2:11

Old Testament

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