Acts 2: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

On the day of Pentecost, the followers of Jesus are gathered together when a sound like a rushing wind fills the house, flame-like tongues rest on each of them, and they begin speaking in other languages by the Holy Spirit. Jews from many nations hear their own languages spoken and ask what it means, while others say the speakers are drunk. Peter stands up and explains that this is what the prophet Joel spoke about, and argues from Psalms that Jesus, whom they crucified, was raised by God and made both Lord and Christ. About three thousand people are baptized that day, and the chapter closes with a picture of the new group sharing meals, possessions, teaching, and prayer.

Claim by Claim

1. 2:1
   • The day of Pentecost had fully arrived.
   • They were all together in one place.
   • They were all of one accord.
2. 2:2
   • Suddenly a sound came from heaven.
   • The sound was like a violent rushing wind.
   • The sound filled the whole house where they were sitting.
3. 2:3
   • Tongues like fire appeared to them.
   • The tongues were divided or distributed among them.
   • A tongue rested on each one of them.
4. 2:4
   • They were all filled with the Holy Spirit.
   • They began to speak in other tongues.
   • They spoke as the Spirit gave them to utter.
5. 2:5
   • Jews were dwelling in Jerusalem.
   • These were devout men.
   • They came from every nation under heaven.
6. 2:6
   • When this sound occurred, the crowd came together.
   • The crowd was bewildered.
   • Each one heard them speaking in his own language.
7. 2:7
   • They were all amazed and marvelled.
   • They said to one another that all these who were speaking were Galileans.
   • They asked how this could be.
8. 2:8
   • They asked how each of them heard in his own native language.
   • It was the language in which each of them was born.
9. 2:9
   • Among them were Parthians.
   • Among them were Medes.
   • Among them were Elamites.
   • Among them were residents of Mesopotamia.
   • Among them were residents of Judaea.
   • Among them were residents of Cappadocia.
   • Among them were residents of Pontus.
   • Among them were residents of Asia.
10. 2:10
    • Among them were residents of Phrygia.
    • Among them were residents of Pamphylia.
    • Among them were residents of Egypt.
    • Among them were residents of the parts of Libya around Cyrene.
    • Among them were visitors from Rome.
11. 2:11
    • Among them were Jews and converts to Judaism.
    • Among them were Cretans.
    • Among them were Arabs.
    • They said they heard the speakers declaring the mighty works of God in their own languages.
12. 2:12
    • They were all amazed.
    • They were perplexed.
    • They said to one another, asking what this meant.
13. 2:13
    • Others mocked.
    • The mockers said the men were full of new wine.
14. 2:14
    • Peter stood up with the eleven.
    • Peter lifted up his voice.
    • Peter addressed them as men of Judaea and all who dwell in Jerusalem.
    • Peter told them to let this be known to them.
    • Peter told them to listen to his words.
15. 2:15
    • Peter said these men were not drunk as the hearers supposed.
    • Peter said it was only the third hour of the day.
16. 2:16
    • Peter said this was what had been spoken through the prophet Joel.
17. 2:17
    • God says that in the last days he will pour out of his Spirit on all flesh.
    • Their sons and daughters will prophesy.
    • Their young men will see visions.
    • Their old men will dream dreams.
18. 2:18
    • God will pour out of his Spirit in those days on his male servants.
    • God will pour out of his Spirit in those days on his female servants.
    • Those servants will prophesy.
19. 2:19
    • God will show wonders in the heaven above.
    • God will show signs on the earth below.
    • The signs will be blood, fire, and vapour of smoke.
20. 2:20
    • The sun will be turned into darkness.
    • The moon will be turned into blood.
    • This will happen before the great and notable day of the Lord comes.
21. 2:21
    • Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
22. 2:22
    • Peter addressed them as men of Israel.
    • Peter told them to hear these words.
    • Jesus of Nazareth was a man attested to them by God.
    • The attestation was by works of power, wonders, and signs.
    • God did these works through Jesus in their midst.
    • Peter said they themselves knew this.
23. 2:23
    • Jesus was delivered up by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God.
    • They took him.
    • They crucified him by the hands of lawless men.
    • They killed him.
24. 2:24
    • God raised Jesus up.
    • God loosed the pains of death.
    • It was not possible for Jesus to be held by death.
25. 2:25
    • David speaks concerning Jesus.
    • David said he saw the Lord always before his face.
    • David said the Lord is at his right hand.
    • David said this was so that he should not be shaken.
26. 2:26
    • David said his heart rejoiced.
    • David said his tongue was glad.
    • David said his flesh will also dwell in hope.
27. 2:27
    • David said God will not abandon his soul to the realm of the dead.
    • David said God will not let his Holy One see corruption.
28. 2:28
    • David said God made known to him the ways of life.
    • David said God will fill him with gladness with his presence.
29. 2:29
    • Peter addressed them as men and brethren.
    • Peter said he could speak to them freely about the patriarch David.
    • David died.
    • David was buried.
    • David's tomb is with them to this day.
30. 2:30
    • David was a prophet.
    • David knew that God had sworn to him with an oath.
    • God swore that of the fruit of David's loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ.
    • God swore that this one would sit on David's throne.
31. 2:31
    • David foresaw this.
    • David spoke of the resurrection of Christ.
    • David said Christ's soul was not left in the realm of the dead.
    • David said Christ's flesh did not see corruption.
32. 2:32
    • God raised up this Jesus.
    • Peter said they are all witnesses of this.
33. 2:33
    • Jesus was exalted by the right hand of God, or to the right hand of God; the wording admits both.
    • Jesus received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit.
    • Jesus poured out this which they see and hear.
34. 2:34
    • David did not ascend into the heavens.
    • David himself says that the Lord said to his Lord to sit at his right hand.
35. 2:35
    • The Lord will make his Lord's enemies a footstool for his feet.
36. 2:36
    • Peter said the whole house of Israel should know assuredly that God has made Jesus both Lord and Christ.
    • Peter said they crucified this same Jesus.
37. 2:37
    • When they heard this they were pierced in the heart.
    • They said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, addressing them as men and brethren.
    • They asked what they should do.
38. 2:38
    • Peter told them to repent.
    • Peter told each of them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.
    • The baptism is for the remission of sins.
    • Peter said they will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
39. 2:39
    • The promise is for them.
    • The promise is for their children.
    • The promise is for all who are far off.
    • The promise is for as many as the Lord their God shall call.
40. 2:40
    • Peter testified with many other words.
    • Peter exhorted them.
    • Peter told them to be saved from this crooked generation.
41. 2:41
    • Those who gladly received his word were baptized.
    • About three thousand souls were added that same day.
42. 2:42
    • They continued steadfastly in the apostles' teaching.
    • They continued steadfastly in the fellowship.
    • They continued steadfastly in the breaking of bread.
    • They continued steadfastly in the prayers.
43. 2:43
    • Fear came upon every soul.
    • Many wonders and signs were done through the apostles.
44. 2:44
    • All who believed were together.
    • They had all things in common.
45. 2:45
    • They sold their possessions and goods.
    • They distributed the proceeds to all, according as anyone had need.
46. 2:46
    • They continued daily with one accord in the temple.
    • They broke bread from house to house.
    • They ate their food with gladness and singleness of heart.
47. 2:47
    • They praised God.
    • They had favour with all the people.
    • The Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

2:1

Pentecost is the Greek name for the Jewish Feast of Weeks, held fifty days after Passover; the name means "fiftieth." It was a harvest festival and one of the three feasts for which Jews traveled to Jerusalem, so the city would have been full of visitors. The King James "with one accord" means gathered together and of one mind, not making a sound together.

2:2

"Heaven" in the King James often means simply the sky, as it does here. The Greek word for "wind" in this verse is closely related to the word for spirit and breath, so the comparison carries a play on words that English cannot keep.

2:3

"Cloven" means split or divided. The same Greek word is translated "tongues" here and "languages" in the next verse: it means both the tongue in the mouth and a language spoken, exactly as in English.

2:4

"Holy Ghost" is the King James wording for the Holy Spirit. "Ghost" in 1611 meant spirit, with none of the modern sense of a haunting. "Other tongues" means other languages.

2:5

Jews had been scattered across the Mediterranean world and the East for centuries. Many from those communities settled back in Jerusalem in later life, and others came for the festivals. The list of places in the next verses maps that scattering.

2:6

The King James "confounded" means bewildered, thrown into confusion; it does not mean proved wrong. The Greek word behind "this was noised abroad" can mean either the noise from the sky or the sound of the voices speaking, and the text does not settle which.

2:7

Galilee was a rural region in the north. Galileans were known by their distinct accent and were regarded in Jerusalem as provincial, the last people expected to command foreign languages. That assumption is what makes the crowd's question sharp.

2:9

Parthians, Medes and Elamites lived east of the Roman Empire, in what is now Iran and Iraq; Mesopotamia is the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates. Cappadocia and Pontus were inland and northern regions of what is now Turkey. "Asia" in the King James never means the continent: it is the Roman province of Asia, on the western coast of modern Turkey.

2:10

Phrygia and Pamphylia were also districts of what is now Turkey. Cyrene was a major city on the Libyan coast with a large Jewish population. "Proselytes" were people born outside Judaism who had converted to it fully, which for men included circumcision.

2:11

Crete is the large island south of Greece. "Arabians" here means people of the Nabataean kingdom southeast of Judea, whose capital was Petra, not inhabitants of the whole peninsula.

2:13

"New wine" translates a word for sweet, freshly fermenting wine. It was still alcoholic, so calling it new does not soften the accusation.

2:14

"The eleven" are the remaining apostles after Judas. A replacement, Matthias, had just been chosen, so Peter together with eleven others makes the full group of twelve.

2:15

Hours were counted from about six in the morning, so the third hour is roughly nine. The hour matters for more than the clock: the morning prayers and the first meal of the day would not yet have happened, which is why public drunkenness at that point would be remarkable.

2:16

Joel was a Hebrew prophet. The quotation that follows runs from Joel 2:28 to 2:32.

2:17

"All flesh" is a Hebrew way of saying all human beings. "Prophesy" in the Bible means to speak on God's behalf, which may or may not involve saying anything about the future.

2:18

"Handmaidens" means female servants. The two Greek words here are the ordinary terms for male and female slaves, the lowest rank in a household, and the point of naming them is that the promise reaches that far down.

2:19

"Shew" is the old spelling of show. "Vapour of smoke" means billowing columns of smoke, the kind raised by fire or by a city burning.

2:20

A darkened sun and a blood-red moon were standard images in the prophets for the world being shaken. "That great and notable day of the Lord" was a fixed prophetic phrase for a decisive day when God acts openly, to judge and to rescue.

2:21

In Joel's Hebrew the word behind "the Lord" is the personal name of Israel's God, which the King James usually prints as LORD in capitals. To "call on the name" is to appeal to him openly and by name.

2:22

"Approved of God" does not mean that God thought well of him. The word means shown to be genuine, publicly attested, pointed out by God as the real thing.

2:23

"The determinate counsel" means a plan already fixed and decided. "Wicked hands" translates a phrase meaning men without the law, which can point specifically to the Romans, who stood outside the Jewish law and carried out the execution, or more generally to lawless men; the Greek allows both.

2:24

"The pains of death" translates a word that literally means the pangs of childbirth. The Hebrew idiom behind it could also mean cords or snares, so the picture is of both agony and binding. "Holden" is the old form of held.

2:25

Peter is quoting Psalm 16, verses 8 to 11, in its Greek version. To be at someone's "right hand" was to stand where a defender or supporter stood, close enough to act on his behalf.

2:27

"Hell" here does not mean a place of punishment. The Greek word is Hades, standing for the Hebrew Sheol, the shadowy realm where all the dead were thought to go, good and bad alike. "To see corruption" means to undergo the decay of a dead body.

2:28

"Countenance" means face. To be before someone's face is to be in his presence, in view and welcomed.

2:29

"Patriarch" means a founding ancestor of the nation. David had been dead about a thousand years by this point, and his tomb was a known landmark in Jerusalem, which is why Peter can point to it as something anyone in the crowd could go and check.

2:30

"The fruit of his loins" means a descendant, and "according to the flesh" means by physical descent. The oath is God's promise to David that his own line would hold the throne. "Christ" is not a surname: it is the Greek for "anointed one," translating the Hebrew word Messiah, the king God appoints and marks out.

2:31

Christ is Greek for the Anointed One, the same as the Hebrew word Messiah. Kings were anointed with oil when they were crowned, and Israel waited for the king God had promised.

2:33

The Greek here can mean either exalted by the right hand of God, that is, by his power, or exalted to the right hand of God, to the place of honor beside him. Both readings are ancient and the wording does not decide between them. "Shed forth" means poured out.

2:34

Peter quotes Psalm 110, verse 1. In the Hebrew the first "Lord" is God's personal name and the second is a different word, the ordinary term for a master or superior. That a king's own psalm should address someone else as his superior is the puzzle Peter is pressing.

2:35

A victorious king was pictured resting his feet on those he had beaten. A footstool under the feet is an image of total subjection, not a piece of furniture.

2:36

"The house of Israel" means the people of Israel taken as a whole, the nation reckoned as a single extended family.

2:37

"Pricked in their heart" translates a word meaning stabbed or pierced right through. It describes a sudden, physical-feeling shock of guilt, not mild regret.

2:38

"Repent" translates a word meaning to change one's mind and turn around, a reversal of direction rather than simply feeling sorry. To be baptized was to be immersed in water; the practice was already familiar from John the Baptist and from Jewish washing rites. "Remission of sins" means their release or cancellation, as a debt is canceled.

2:39

"All that are afar off" can mean Jews living far from Jerusalem, or people outside Israel altogether. The phrase is open, and the rest of Acts keeps returning to the question of how far it reaches.

2:40

"Untoward" in 1611 meant crooked, twisted, perverse, the opposite of straight. It has nothing to do with the modern sense of awkward or improper.

2:41

"Souls" in the King James often just means people, counted as individuals. Three thousand is a large but plausible figure for a festival crowd in a city swollen with pilgrims.

2:42

"Doctrine" here simply means teaching. "Fellowship" translates a word meaning sharing in common, partnership in a shared life and shared property, not merely friendly company. "Breaking of bread" was the ordinary phrase for sitting down to a meal, and may here also carry the sense of the meal that recalled Jesus's last supper; the wording does not distinguish the two.

2:43

"Fear" here means awe, a sense of standing near something overwhelming, rather than fright.

2:45

In a society with no welfare system, selling land and goods to support the poor of your own group was a radical and visible act, since land was the main form of family security and was normally kept in the family at all costs.

2:46

"The temple" means the temple's great outer courts, the public spaces where crowds gathered and teachers spoke; only priests went inside the building itself. "Meat" in the King James means food of any kind, not flesh. "Singleness of heart" means simplicity, without calculation or display.

2:47

"Having favour with all the people" means being held in goodwill and good standing by their neighbors. "The church" translates a Greek word meaning an assembly of people called together; at this point it means the body of believers themselves, not a building or an institution.