Acts 2:8

And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(8) And how hear we every man in our own tongue?—We have here, it is obvious, a composite utterance, in which the writer embodies the manifold expressions which came from those who represented the several nationalities that are afterwards enumerated.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

2:5-13 The difference in languages which arose at Babel, has much hindered the spread of knowledge and religion. The instruments whom the Lord first employed in spreading the Christian religion, could have made no progress without this gift, which proved that their authority was from God.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Wherein we were born - That is, as we say, in our native language; what is spoken where we were born.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

5-11. there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men out of every nation—not, it would seem, permanently settled there (see Ac 2:9), though the language seems to imply more than a temporary visit to keep this one feast.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Dialektov signifies commonly a different way of speaking, or pronouncing in the same language; as our southern, and northern men differ in some words and pronunciation, though speaking both the English tongue. God’s works being most perfect, the apostles might speak, not only the same language which all understood, but in the same idiom and propriety of speech which agreed to every one best.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And how hear we every man in our own tongue,.... Them speaking, as the Ethiopic version reads; that is, we everyone of us hear one or another, speak in the same language,

wherein we were born; our native language; for though these men were Jews by descent, yet were born and brought up in other countries, which language they spake; and not the Hebrew, or Syriac, or Chaldee.

Geneva Study Bible

{e} And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?

(e) Not that they spoke one language, and different languages were heard, but the apostles spoke with different languages: for otherwise the miracle would have been in the hearers, whereas it is really in the speakers; Nazianzen in his oration of Whitsunday.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Expositor's Greek Testament

Acts 2:8. τῇ ἰδίᾳ διαλ … ἐν ᾗ ἐγεννήθημεν—used distributively as Acts 2:11 ταῖς ἡμετ. γλώσσαις shows—and hence cannot be taken to mean that only one language common to all, viz., Aramaic, was spoken on the outpouring of the Spirit.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

8. every man in our own tongue] i.e. language. There is no description here of any jargon or incoherent speech, we are told of utterances tested by the ears of those who had spoken these languages from their youth. The only question on which from St Luke’s description we are left in uncertainty is this: whether the disciples did or did not understand the new words which they were enabled to utter. The only other place in the New Testament which throws any light on this matter is St Paul’s first Epistle to the Corinthians. For a consideration of the expressions which St Paul there employs concerning these marvellous gifts, see note after Acts 2:13.

Bengel's Gnomen

Acts 2:8. Καὶ πῶς, and yet how) The period is concluded at Acts 2:11. For the words, “How do we hear, each of us in our own tongue in which we were born,” which sound abrupt by themselves (with which comp. Acts 2:6), are, after the long parenthesis, whereby the sense of the sentence is elegantly kept in suspense, resumed in these words, “We do hear them speak,” etc. The language is eminently suited to express wonder. Comp. what we have observed on such parentheses in our comment on Gregorii Thaum. Paneg. § 94. The apostles were representatives of a variety both of dialects, for instance, Pontic and Asiatic Greek, and of tongues.

Pulpit Commentary

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. Acts 2:8