Acts 2:5

5. Dwelling at Jerusalem Some, perhaps, only during the interval from Passover to Pentecost to enjoy both feasts. But the Greek word for dwelling implies permanent residence.

“The (present) Jewish population has been variously estimated from three to five thousand. The number varies, no doubt, from time to time, since many of them are pilgrims, who come and go in a very uncertain manner. Few of them, comparatively, are natives of the country. The majority of them are aged persons, who repair to the holy city to spend the remainder of their days, and secure the privileges of being buried in the valley of the Kedron, which, as their traditions assert, is to be the scene of the last judgment. Others of them are those who come hither to fulfil a vow, or acquire the merit of a pilgrimage, and then return to the countries where they reside. Among them may be found representatives of every land, though the Spanish, Polish, and German Jews compose the greater number. Like their brethren in other parts of Palestine, except a few in some commercial places, they are wretchedly poor, and live chiefly on alms contributed by their countrymen in Europe and America.” Hackett’s Bib. Ill., p. 229.

This poverty of pilgrim residents goes far to illustrate the so-called “community of goods” of the first Jerusalem Church.

Every nation under heaven ”I would like to ask those,” says Erasmus, “who deny there is any hyperbole in Scripture, if they think there were any English or Scotch at the Pentecost.” But Grotius ingeniously identifies all the races named as being branches from the “sixteen grandsons of Noah, from whom all nations were descended.” Luke clearly uses these phrases of wide universality with a feeling that all the world was here represented.