XV. They spoke with strange tongues, and not
those of their native land; and the wonder was great, a language spoken
by those who had not learnt it. And the sign is to them that
believe not, 1 Cor. xiv. 22. and not to them
that believe, that it may be an accusation of the unbelievers, as it is
written, With other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this
people, and not even so will they listen to Me Isa. xxviii. 11.
saith the Lord. But they heard. Here stop a little and
raise a question, how you are to divide the words. For the
expression has an ambiguity, which is to be determined by the
punctuation. Did they each hear in their own dialect The actual order of
the words in the Greek of Acts
ii. 6 is, They heard each
individual in his own dialect them speaking; so that the position of
the comma affects the meaning. so that if I may so say, one sound was
uttered, but many were heard; the air being thus beaten and, so to
speak, sounds being produced more clear than the original sound; or are
we to put the stop after “they Heard,” and then to add
“them speaking in their own languages” to what follows, so
that it would be speaking in languages their own to the hearers, which
would be foreign to the speakers? I prefer to put it this latter
way; for on the other plan the miracle would be rather of the hearers
than of the speakers; whereas in this it would be on the
speakers’ side; and it was they who were reproached for
drunkenness, evidently because they by the Spirit wrought a miracle in
the matter of the tongues.