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Acts 2:8

in Acts 2

How is it then that each of us hears them in his own native language?

BSB

The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾

ASV

And how hear we, every man in our own language wherein we were born?

KJV

And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?

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This verse in Acts 2

Commentary

9 notes on this verse

A commentator

Gregory of Nazianzus

ON PENTECOST, ORATION 41.15 · Written before 390.

They spoke with strange tongues, and not those of their native land; and the wonder was great, a language spoken by those who had not learnt it. And the sign is to them that believe not, and not to them that believe, that it may be an accusation of the unbelievers, as it is written, With other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people, and not even so will they listen to Me saith the Lord. But they heard. Here stop a little and raise a question, how you are to divide the words.

This site's exposition

out of every nation under heaven

on Acts 2:5-8

Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven were dwelling at Jerusalem, the diaspora gathered for the feast, and the noised-abroad sound draws the multitude that every sign in this book exists to draw. Every man heard them speak in his own language: the miracle is speech, not merely hearing, since the speakers are known Galileans and the tongues are named real languages in the next verses. The commentators old and new hear Babel reversing, the scattering of tongues answered by a gathering, and the exposition names the echo as the church has long read it while keeping the scene's own emphasis, the wonderful works of God made native to every ear.

The record, by era

The Church Fathers2 voices

A commentator

Arator

ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 1 · Written before 544.

proposed

Long after the old ark had overcome the waters of the sea, malicious people wished to extend their tower [of Babel] into heaven. In them, irreligious hearts divided the forms of their speech, and the good will in these arrogant confederates perished with their voice. …

A commentator

Oecumenius

Commentary on Acts · Written before 550.

proposed

The multitude was perplexed or disturbed, for reasonably they supposed that wondrous things were being shown to them, on account of the bold deeds done concerning Christ, and conscience troubled their souls. And some were murderous in this way; but the devout ones were amazed, …

The Puritans and the Awakening3 voices

And how hear we every man in our own tongue,.... Them speaking, as the Ethiopic version reads; that is, we everyone of us hear one or another, speak in the same language, wherein we were born; our native language; for though these men were Jews by descent, yet were born and brought up in other countries, which language they spake; and not the Hebrew, or Syriac, or Chaldee.

A commentator

Matthew Henry

1662–1714

Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710)

proposed

), that is, we hear one or other of them speak our native language. The Parthians hear one of them speak their language, the Medes hear another of them speak theirs; and so of the rest;

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens

A commentator

Matthew Henry

1662–1714

Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710)

proposed

The sermon which Peter preached to them hereupon, wherein he shows that this pouring out of the Spirit was the accomplishment of an Old-Testament promise (

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens

2 more voices on this verse

The Nineteenth Century2 voices

A commentator

Adam Clarke

1762–1832

Commentary on the Bible · Written before 1832.

How hear we every man in our own tongue - Some have supposed from this that the miracle was not so much wrought on the disciples as on their hearers: imagining that, although the disciples spoke their own tongue, yet every man so understood what was spoken as if it had been spoken in the language in which he was born.
Wherein we were born - That is, as we say, in our native language; what is spoken where we were born.

How the passage was read

On Acts 2:1-13

On Acts 2:1-13

The feast the crowd came for

Pentecost is the Greek name (“fiftieth”) for the feast the Torah calls Weeks, in Hebrew Shavuot: kept fifty days after Passover, when the firstfruits of the wheat harvest were brought to God (Leviticus 23:15–17). That is why devout Jews “from every nation under heaven” fill Jerusalem in this chapter: it was a pilgrimage feast, one of the three yearly appearances.

Jewish tradition also came to keep Shavuot as the anniversary of the giving of the Torah at Sinai; the Talmud states plainly that it is “the day on which the Torah was given” (Pesachim 68b). The synagogue still reads Ruth, the harvest-season story of a Gentile grafted into Israel, at this feast by long custom. On that day, in that city, the Spirit was given and three thousand were gathered in: the resonance is the reader's to weigh.

This section is reception history: how the passage was read and kept in the Jewish tradition. Where a reading parts from an essential of the Christian faith, the section says so at that point.

Sources: Leviticus 23:15–17 (the fifty days and the wheat firstfruits) · Pesachim 68b (“the day the Torah was given”) · Rema on Shulchan Arukh OC 490 (Ruth read at Shavuot)

The words behind it

12 Greek words

Every Greek word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.

A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.

Where this verse is studied

About Acts

The Ascension, Gustave Doré, 1866. Public domain.
The Ascension, Gustave Doré, 1866. Public domain.
Acts: the study guide →Read Acts 2 →

This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Arator, ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 1; Gregory of Nazianzus, ON PENTECOST, ORATION 41.15; J. A. Alexander, The Acts of the Apostles Explained; John Gill, Exposition of the New Testament (1746-1748); Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Oecumenius, Commentary on Acts.

Read on in Acts 2 →