Wherein we were born - That is, as we say, in our native language; what is spoken where we were born.

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. Though this is by no means so likely as the opinion which states that the disciples themselves spoke all these different languages, yet the miracle is the same, howsoever it be taken; for it must require as much of the miraculous power of God to enable an Arab to understand a Galilean, as to enable a Galilean to speak Arabic. But that the gift of tongues was actually given to the apostles, we have the fullest proof; as we find particular ordinances laid down by those very apostles for the regulation of the exercise of this gift; see 1 Corinthians 14:1, etc.

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.

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

(e) Not that they spoke one language, and different languages were heard, but the apostles spoke with different languages: for otherwise the miracle would have been in the hearers, whereas it is really in the speakers; Nazianzen in his oration of Whitsunday.

2:7,8 Are not all these who speak Galileans? Most of the disciples to this time were. The Galileans were not generally learned men, yet now all hear, every man his own tongue.

Margin tongue

language.

2:5-13 The difference in languages which arose at Babel, has much hindered the spread of knowledge and religion. The instruments whom the Lord first employed in spreading the Christian religion, could have made no progress without this gift, which proved that their authority was from God.