Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and those who inhabit Mesopotamia, and Judaea, and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,
The crowd at Pentecost names itself by homeland, and the list starts in the far east — Parthia, Media, Elam — then moves west. Behind those names lie centuries of Jewish scattering, and the list raises one question: why did God answer it with many languages?
The names are not a random cluster. The order runs across the map, and that careful spread is itself the proof that many separate languages were in use, not just a few.
These strangers came from many lands, and each one heard the disciples speaking in his own language. That is what confounded them. Aramaic, or Greek and Latin, may have spread widely across the then known world. Even so, this list is careful and varied. It runs from the north-east to the west and south, which seems to be why Judea comes between Mesopotamia and Cappadocia. So it is pointless to tell anyone who believes such a list that the inspired writer means no more than a few distinct languages.
Two of the names in this verse are easy to misread today. "Asia" here is not the continent, and not even the whole of Asia Minor.
In the New Testament this word does not mean the part of the earth now called Asia. It does not cover the whole of Asia Minor either. It means only the western part of Asia Minor. Attalus III Philometor, king of Pergamos, left that region to Rome in 133 B.C. The province, with Ephesus as its capital, included Caria, Lydia, and Mysia. In Acts 2:9-10 "Asia" does not include Cappadocia, Pontus, Phrygia, or Pamphylia. All of those belong to Asia Minor.
Cappadocia is worth marking. The same district reappears later in Scripture as an address for a letter.
Cappadocia: a district in the east of Asia Minor. Visitors from there were at Jerusalem at the feast of Pentecost. Peter includes this district when he addresses his first letter to the scattered Jews. Acts 2:9; 1 Peter 1:1. The district extended as far east as the Euphrates.
Shalmaneser carried Israelites off to the cities of Media after Samaria fell. Men from that region stand in this crowd.
The Medes are first mentioned when Shalmaneser took Samaria and carried away the Israelites. He placed some of them "in the cities of the Medes." 2 Kings 17:6; 18:11... There were some bearing the name of Medes present at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost.
That detail answers the claim that the ten tribes vanished from history.
On the great day of Pentecost we find "devout men" in the audience who came from the very regions to which the ten tribes were deported.
Each group heard its own homeland's language, so this was no burst of excited noise. The hearers themselves are the evidence.
But one awkward fact stands in the way of calling these imaginary languages. All the different nations whose languages they were understood them... Now this fact is the substantial point of the whole affair. It was what struck the crowd. Three thousand people were converted by it. The Church begins its existence, formed because this crowd understood what was said.
Once God scattered people by confusing their speech. Here the same variety of speech becomes the road back to them.
In Acts 2 we see the blessed One coming down in infinite grace. He meets man in the very circumstances where his sin had placed him. The Holy Spirit enabled the messengers of grace to give their message in each hearer's own native language. This is precious proof that God wanted to reach man's heart with the sweet story of grace! The law from the fiery mountain was not announced like this. When God was telling what man ought to be, He spoke in one language. When He was telling what He Himself was, He spoke in many.
Elam has its own promise in the prophets. Commentators differ over whether Pentecost fulfilled it, and one writer refuses the link outright.
"But it shall come to pass in the latter days, that I will bring again the captivity of Elam, says Jehovah." Here mercy triumphs at last over judgment... God will show His goodness towards Elam when the kingdom comes. Calvin and others refer its fulfilment to Acts 2:9. That only shows how little such men enter into either the old or the new.
- Scattered — the names run from Parthia in the north-east westward across the map. They belong to one people long dispersed among the nations.
- Named — the list is precise, not decorative. "Asia" means one Roman province in western Asia Minor. Cappadocia reappears as an address of Peter's first letter.
- Present — men from the very regions of the northern deportation stand in this crowd, so those tribes were never lost to history.
- Understood — the hearers, not the speakers, prove the miracle. Real nations recognised real languages, and three thousand were converted.
- Reversed — God once divided speech to scatter people. Now He uses many languages to gather them. The law came in one language; the news of what God is came in many.
both Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt, and the parts of Libya which adjoin Cyrene, and the Romans sojourning [here], both Jews and proselytes,
The list of nations sweeps west across Asia Minor into Africa, then on to the capital of the empire. It ends by naming the hearers: born Jews and converts from other nations. Why name so many places at all?
The verse reaches Africa with the Libyan country around Cyrene. Cyrene had already appeared in the Gospel story.
A Greek city, the capital of the classic Cyrenaica, in the north of Africa, and the people of the same place. Some from there were present on the day of Pentecost, and they had a synagogue in Jerusalem. Simon, who carried the cross of the Lord, was a Cyrenian.
The order of the list is itself an argument.
What confounded these strangers from so many lands was that each one heard the disciples speaking in his own language. Aramaic, Greek and Latin may have spread widely over the world of that day. Even so, this list is careful and varied. It runs from the north-east to the west and south. (That seems to be why Judea comes between Mesopotamia and Cappadocia.) It is pointless to tell anyone who believes such a list that the inspired writer means only a few distinct tongues.
Notice the direction of the miracle. The speakers were Jews; the languages were those of the nations among whom Israel had been scattered.
God caused those who received the Holy Spirit to speak in the different tongues spread over the Gentile world. He did not cause all the converts to speak the Jewish language. Instead, He caused the Jews, gathered from their dispersion among all nations, to speak the tongues of the Gentiles. It was a magnificent witness of the grace that was going out to the Gentiles to meet them where they were. The judgment of God had inflicted these various tongues upon them. It had completely broken up their ambitious project at the tower of Babel — joining together to build a unity of their own. But the grace of God went out exactly where His judgment had placed them.
Every person there heard the message in the speech he first learned.
In Genesis 11 divided tongues were sent in judgment. In Acts 2 divided tongues were sent in grace. The blessed God of all grace would cause each one to hear of full salvation. Each would hear it in the very words in which his infant ears had listened to the earliest whispers of a mother's love — in his own native language. It did not matter whether the language was soft or harsh, refined or rough. The Holy Spirit would use it to carry the precious message of salvation right home to the poor heart. Divided tongues had once been given to scatter in judgment. Now they were given again to gather in grace — not around an earthly tower, but around a heavenly Christ.
The verse ends with two groups. The second, proselytes, had joined Israel's faith.
The name given to anyone from among the nations who embraced Judaism. The name may be said to be a Greek word, formed from a verb meaning "to come to." The Greek Old Testament uses it where the Hebrew has "the stranger" who lives among you. If all the males in the family were circumcised, such people could eat the Passover and offer a burnt offering or sacrifice.
So the audience that day was still gathered inside Israel's circle. But who was already in view?
Still, those who heard and believed the gospel that day were Jews and proselytes only. The Lord had stretched out His hands in vain to a disobedient and contrary people. Those hands were already pointing to all the nations, who also would hear.
The last group named is the visitors from Rome, called "strangers" in the older wording below.
There were "strangers" from Rome at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. No doubt they heard the gospel there. Some may have been converted and carried the gospel back with them.
That leaves a striking gap in the record of how the church in the capital began.
God in His wisdom ordered that no apostle should plant the gospel in the imperial city. Rome cannot truly boast of a church that began with an apostle, as Jerusalem, Philippi, Corinth, Ephesus and many smaller places can. We know that on the day of Pentecost, when God first gave the Holy Spirit, there were Roman Jews staying in Jerusalem who heard the gospel there.
- Scattered. Babel broke humanity into languages as a judgment; the nations listed here are the map that judgment left behind.
- Reached. Grace went out exactly where that judgment had placed them. Jews spoke the tongues of the Gentile world, not the other way round.
- Personal. Each hearer got the message in the language of his childhood. Polished or rough, the Spirit used every language.
- Bounded, for now. The believers that day were still Jews and proselytes only, yet the sign already pointed to all the nations who would hear.
- Carried home. Visitors from Rome heard, and the gospel travelled back with ordinary people. No apostle founded the church in the imperial city.
Cretans and Arabians, we hear them speaking in our own tongues the great things of God?
The crowd in Jerusalem came from every part of the known world, and each person heard his own native language. Two questions press on this verse: what were the disciples saying, and why did God choose this sign?
The crowd was made up of Jews and proselytes — Gentiles who had joined the Jewish faith. They name the theme themselves, and one writer draws out what that theme was.
The mercy of God was now about to reach great numbers of people, in the very languages that men of old had been condemned to, in His just displeasure. People were present from every quarter. Most of them were Jews, or Jewish proselytes. What do you think the Lord's servants spoke about? About Jesus, and not about themselves. That day "the wonderful works of God" was their glorious theme. In many languages they opened up the truth of His love, the wonderful death of His Son, and the way God was glorified by that death.
The law came in one language. Here the message goes out in many, and the reason lies in what God was announcing.
The Holy Spirit enabled the messengers of grace to deliver their message in the very tongue in which each was born. This is precious proof that God wanted to reach man's heart with the sweet story of grace! The law from the fiery mountain was not given this way. When God was telling what man ought to be, He spoke in one tongue; but when He was telling what He Himself was, He spoke in many. Man's pride and folly had built a barrier. Grace broke through it, so that every man could hear and understand the good news of salvation — the wonderful works of God.
Some say the disciples spoke only a few widely known languages. The careful roll-call of countries in verses 9 to 11 rules that out.
These strangers came from many lands. What confused them was that each one heard the disciples speaking in his own language. Aramaic, Greek and Latin may have spread widely over the known world. Even so, the list here is careful and varied, running from the north-east to the west and south. It is pointless to tell anyone who believes that list that the inspired writer means no more than a few distinct languages. The residents and visitors in Jerusalem did not judge so. They were devout men, so their judgment carried weight, and they were the last people to accept anything new in religion. To them the evidence was irresistible.
Writers here quote the older wording "the wonderful works of God"; the ESV reads "the mighty works of God."
The disciples knew what they were saying. The crowd knew what they were hearing. One writer makes that double clarity the test of the real gift.
They were bearing witness to Christ and His death and resurrection. Of course they knew exactly what they were saying. But by a miracle they could say it in a language they did not normally know. Their hearers too understood what they were saying. Expect these two things wherever the true gift of tongues is in use. In effect this would reverse, in a wonderful way, what God did at the tower of Babel, when He confused men's languages (Genesis 11:5-9). In the church there would now be understanding and fellowship between nations that had long been far apart.
Not every later use of tongues matched this day. Commentators set what happened here apart from the gift at Corinth.
The gift of speaking in a tongue (in 1 Corinthians) was an entirely different thing. Those who heard it did not, like those in Acts 2:11, hear in their own language. They could not understand what was said unless it was interpreted.
The verse names Cretans and Arabians last. Crete comes up again years later, when Paul left Titus on the island.
Neither Paul nor Titus is said to have planted the gospel in Crete. From Acts 2:11 it seems very likely that the good news reached the island almost from the great day of Pentecost. It was a question therefore for Titus to follow up that setting of things in order which the apostle began.
- Judgment. At Babel God confused men's languages and scattered them. The many languages heard in Jerusalem were the result.
- Grace. God met men where judgment had left them. He spoke one language when telling man his duty, and many when telling what He Himself is.
- Theme. The content was not the speakers but the Saviour: God's love, the death of His Son, and God glorified in that death.
- Test. Real languages, spoken with understanding and heard with understanding: that is the mark of the true gift.
- Result. Cretans and Arabians went home with the news. The gospel reached Crete almost from the day it began.