Acts 1:14

14. All continued During the ten days to the feast of Pentecost.

Prayer and supplication The word supplication, being wanting in some manuscripts, is of doubtful genuineness. Prayer is the more general term, including all sorts of uttered or mental worship, whether of simply thanks or petition. Supplication is simply the ardent expression of our wants.

With the women Our minds naturally revert to the women from Galilee, who supplied the wants, watched the cross, and visited the sepulchre of Jesus. But as the phrase is simply with women, the article being omitted from the Greek, we cannot be absolutely certain that they are the same. It may simply mean that both sexes were present. Mary. (See note on Matthew 1:18.)

Brethren. (See note on Matthew 13:55.) It is perfectly clear from this passage that these brothers of Jesus were not the same with the apostles of the same name. The semi-scepticism with which they were animated in John 7:3 (where see our note) has passed away. The scenes, perhaps, of the cross and the ascension have sobered their spirit and deepened their faith.

From the mount of the ascension, where their first dismay at the loss of Jesus was dismissed by the words of the angels, the apostles hasten with joy to the high place of prayer. Inspired with that measure of the Spirit once preparatorily breathed upon them by Jesus, instructed by the lessons of the forty days closed by the final ascent of the Lord, they now have attained a point at which they comprehend their position and joyfully understand their duty. They know how they are to tarry at Jerusalem for the great baptism of the Spirit and the gift of power. (Acts 1:5; Acts 1:8.) Then with what immediateness, continuity, and oneness of accord do they set themselves to prayer and supplication! When men object that the powerful rush of the Pentecostal Spirit implies an unseemly overthrow of the free agency of this holy company, they forget with what devout persistence in prayer their whole souls had been consecrated to the occasion, so that their clarified intellects, their inmost hearts, and their eager wills were ready at the moment to co-operate with the fulness of the Spirit, so that the most perfect freedom, both of God and man, united in the blessed work.