Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.
Cretes and Arabians. Crete (the modern Candia) is that large island of the Mediterranean which stretches across the southern extremity of the AEgean Sea, and celebrated once for its hundred cities. From the time of Alexander the Great large numbers of Jews settled there, which accounts for the mention of them here. Arabia is the well-known country lying immediately to the east of Palestine. An impression of universality is evidently designed to be conveyed (as Baumgarten remarks) by the wide sweep of this catalogue.
We do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God. See the note at Acts 2:4.
How the Multitude regard this Phenomenon (2:12-13)
Two very different views of it were taken. One class seem to be those foreign Jews who, on hearing the wonderful works of God celebrated in their own tongue by persons totally ignorant of it, were simply confounded, and had no theory on which to explain it.