(8) And how hear we every man in our own tongue?--We have here, it is obvious, a composite utterance, in which the writer embodies the manifold expressions which came from those who represented the several nationalities that are afterwards enumerated.

Verse 8. - Language for tongue, A.V. Language (διαλέκτῳ, as in Acts 1:19). It only occurs in the New Testament in the Acts, and may mean either language or dialect. Here it is properly rendered language, and is synonymous with γλώσσαις in ver. 11.

2:5-13 The difference in languages which arose at Babel, has much hindered the spread of knowledge and religion. The instruments whom the Lord first employed in spreading the Christian religion, could have made no progress without this gift, which proved that their authority was from God.And how hear we every man in our own tongue,.... Them speaking, as the Ethiopic version reads; that is, we everyone of us hear one or another, speak in the same language,

wherein we were born; our native language; for though these men were Jews by descent, yet were born and brought up in other countries, which language they spake; and not the Hebrew, or Syriac, or Chaldee.