Acts 10:44 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

The Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word. — The words imply a sudden thrill of spiritual joy and elevation which showed itself, as it had done on the Day of Pentecost (see Note on Acts 2:4), in a burst of unpremeditated praise. Now, as then, the “tongues” manifested themselves, not as instruments of teaching, but in “magnifying God.” As there is no mention here of the utterance of praise being in any other language than those with which the speakers were familiar, there is no ground for assuming that this feature of the Pentecostal gift was reproduced, and the jubilant ecstatic praise which was the essence of that gift must be thought of as corresponding to the phenomena described in 1 Corinthians 14:7-9.