Acts 4:4

‘But many of those who heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to be about five thousand.'

However, this event did not affect the impact of the message (indeed as the chief priests and their denial of a general resurrection were not popular it may have helped it) and many who heard Peter's words believed, so that the number of disciples now came to ‘the number of the men -- about five thousand'. Five thousand is probably not intended to be taken literally. It had in mind an increase from the ‘three thousand' on the day of Pentecost, and probably had in mind the ‘five thousand men' fed by Jesus when He broke the loaves, the picture of the covenant community. Five is the number of covenant and ‘five thousand' therefore signified the covenant community as a whole. But it certainly signified a large number. Taking into account women and children as well this may well have been more than one tenth of the population of Jerusalem.

Note the stress on the fact that they ‘believed'. They responded to the message of the crucified and risen Jesus and committed themselves to following Him along with His people. In the terms of Acts 3:19 they ‘repented'. They had been faced up with Jesus Christ and their hearts had responded, and from now on they would follow Him. Later we will learn that it was because they were ‘ordained to eternal life' (Acts 13:48). As in so many incidents in Scripture God was carrying out his will, and human beings were of their own volition moving along in parallel with that will.