Acts 13:52 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Ghost. — The tense is again that which expresses the continuance of the state. The “joy” expresses what is almost the normal sequence of conversion in the history of the Acts. (See Notes on Acts 8:8; Acts 8:39.) The addition of “the Holy Ghost” may imply special gifts like those of tongues and prophecy, but certainly involves a new intensity of spiritual life, of which joy was the natural outcome. As being conspicuous among the Gentile converts, we trace the impression which it then made, in words which St. Paul wrote long years afterwards, “The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” (Romans 14:17).