Acts 1:15

15. In those days The ten days between the ascension and the Pentecost.

Peter stood up. After his terrible fall, and his full restoration by Jesus himself, (see John’s account in the closing chapter of his Gospel,) Peter resumes his place as eminent among his equals of the apostolic body. He has, indeed, no popish power to elect an apostle or a bishop, but he is leader in the process of election by others equally with himself.

Names For the persons bearing the names, which were probably enrolled upon some record. So Revelation 3:4, “Thou hast a few names (for persons) even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments,” where, doubtless, allusion is made to the Church record. (See note on Acts 3:16.)

About a hundred and twenty The hundred and twenty satraps, says Grotius, of a kingdom much greater than the realm of Darius. (Daniel 6:1.) We rather think this number to be the apostolic twelve, multiplied by the Gentile or national ten: just as the seventy deacons were the sacred seven multiplied by ten, and the forty days (see note on Acts 1:3) are the sacred four multiplied by ten. So the beast of seven heads has ten Gentile or national horns; and the commandments for all nations are ten. We suppose that the number of Christians in Jerusalem was larger than this; and very probably this exact number was seldom present, but only about that named figure. Hence it is hardly too much to suspect that this about one hundred and twenty were an enrolled organic number hinted here by Luke to be symbolically representative of the whole Church of the Christian ages. (See on Sacred Numbers, vol. i, pp. 79, 105.) As such they received the pentecostal outpouring. (See note on Acts 2:1.)