Acts 2:3 - Exposition

Tongues parting asunder for cloven tongues, A.V.; each one for each, A.V. There appeared. They had heard the sound, now they see the tongues of fire, and then they feel the Spirit working in them (see Acts 2:34 ). Tongues parting asunder . The idea of the cloven tongue, i.e. a tongue parted into two, which is thought to have been the origin of the miter, is not suggested either by the Greek or by the circumstances, and is clearly a mistaken one. διαμεριζόμεναι means distributing themselves or being distributed. From the central apparition, or rather place of sound, they saw issuing forth many several tongues, looking like small flames of fire, and one such tongue sat upon each one of the brethren or disciples present. Each one . That Chrysostom is right ('Hom.'4.) in interpreting the each one of this verse of the hundred and twenty, and not of the twelve, and the all in Acts 2:4 of all present besides the apostles, may be demonstrated. For not only must the all of Acts 2:1 refer to the same company as was described in the preceding chapter ( Acts 2:15-26 ), but it is quite clear in Acts 2:15 of this chapter that Peter and the eleven ( Acts 2:14 ), standing up separate from the body of the disciples, say of them, "These are not drunken, as ye suppose;" which is a demonstration that those of whom they thus spoke had been speaking with tongues (see also Acts 10:44 ). St. Augustine, too, says that the hundred and twenty all received the Holy Spirit. To the same effect Meyer, Wordsworth, Alford (who adds, "Not the hundred and twenty only, but all the believers in Christ then congregated at Jerusalem;" so also Lange). Farrar well remarks, "It was the consecration of a whole Church to be all of them a chosen generation, a royal priest- hood, a holy nation, a peculiar people" ('Life of St. Paul,' Acts 5:1-42 .). Lange says, "Not only the apostles, but all the disciples, were filled with the Holy Ghost. There is a universal priesthood of all believers, and the Holy Ghost is the anointing which consecrates and qualifies for this priesthood".