Acts 2:4 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

They were all filled with the Holy Ghost That is, all the one hundred and twenty, as appears from Acts 2:1. At the time of this wonderful appearance, this whole company were abundantly replenished with both the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit, not only in order to their own salvation, but also and especially to qualify them to be Christ's witnesses to mankind, both Jews and Gentiles, according to his promise, Acts 1:1; Acts 1:8. They were filled with the graces of the Spirit, and were more than ever under its sanctifying influences; were now holy, and heavenly, and spiritual; more weaned from this world, and better acquainted with the other. They were more filled with the comforts of the Spirit, rejoiced more than ever in the love of Christ, and the hope of heaven, and in it all their griefs and fears were swallowed up. They were also, 2d, In proof of this, filled with the gifts of the Holy Ghost, which is especially meant here: they were endued with miraculous powers for the furtherance of the gospel. It seems evident that not the twelve apostles only, but all the one hundred and twenty disciples were endowed with the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost at this time; all the seventy disciples, who were apostolical men, and employed in the same work, and all the rest that were to preach the gospel; for it is said expressly, (Ephesians 4:8; Ephesians 4:11,) that when Christ ascended on high, (which refers to this here, Acts 2:33,) he gave gifts unto men, not only some apostles, such were the twelve; but some prophets, and some evangelists, many of the seventy disciples, itinerant preachers; and some pastors and teachers, settled in particular churches, as we may suppose some of these afterward were. And began to speak with other tongues To speak languages of which they had before been entirely ignorant. For this miracle was not in the ears of the hearers, as some have unaccountably supposed, but in the mouths of the speakers. The meaning is not, that one was enabled to speak one language, and another another, as it was with the several families that were dispersed from Babel; but every one was enabled to speak divers languages as he should have occasion to use them. And we may suppose that they not only understood what they themselves said, but understood one another too, which the builders at Babel did not, Genesis 11:7. They did not speak now and then a word of another tongue, or stammer out some broken sentences, but spoke each language which they spoke as readily, properly, and elegantly, as if it had been their mother tongue: for whatever was produced by miracle was the best of the kind. They spake not from any previous thought, but as the Spirit gave them utterance He furnished them with the matter, as well as the language. And this family, praising God together with the tongues of all the world, was an earnest that the whole world should, in due time, praise God in their various tongues. Now observe here, reader, 1st, This was a very great and stupendous miracle, a miracle upon men's minds: for in the mind ideas are conceived, and words are framed: a miracle, with regard to every individual, and every language, thus communicated to that individual, equal to that of giving speech to persons born deaf and dumb, concerning which, see the note on Matthew 15:30. These disciples had not only never learned any of these languages, but had never learned any foreign tongue, which if they had done, the acquisition of these might have been thereby facilitated. Nay, for aught that appears to the contrary, most of them had never so much as heard any of these languages spoken, or had any idea of them. 2d, It was a peculiarly proper, needful, and useful miracle. The language these disciples spoke was Syriac, or rather Chaldaio-Syriac, a dialect of the Hebrew; so that their being endued with this gift was necessary, even for their understanding both the Hebrew, in which the Old Testament was originally written, and the Greek, in which the New Testament was to be written. But that was not all: they were commissioned to preach the gospel to every creature, to disciple all nations. But here an insuperable difficulty meets them at the very threshold: how shall they be made acquainted with the several languages of the nations to which they are sent, so as to speak intelligibly to them all. It would be the work of the life of any of them to learn their languages. Hence, to prove that Christ would give authority to preach to the nations, he gives ability to his servants to preach to them in their own languages. And it should seem that this was, at least in part, the accomplishment of the promise which Christ made to his disciples, John 14:12. Greater works than these shall ye do, because I go unto the Father; for this gift of tongues may well be reckoned, all things considered, a greater work than any of the miraculous cures which Christ wrought. It is observed by Dr. Lightfoot, that as the division of tongues at Babel once introduced confusion, and was the means of casting off the Gentiles from the knowledge of the true God; so now, there was a remedy provided by the gift of tongues at Zion, to bring the Gentiles out of darkness into light, and to destroy the veil which had been spread over all nations. And Archbishop Tillotson thought it probable, if the conversion of infidels to Christianity were sincerely and vigorously attempted by men of honest and disinterested minds, God would, in an extraordinary way, countenance such attempts by giving all proper assistance, as he did to the first preachers of the gospel.