Acts 2:1

ἐν τῷ συμπληροῦσθαι, lit [114], “when the day of Pentecost was being fulfilled” (filled up). R.V. renders “was now come,” and a question arises as to whether the words mean this, or that the day was only being filled up, and not fully come. Blass interprets the expression to mean a short time before the day of Pentecost, not the day itself. Weiss and others suppose that the expression refers to the completing of the interval of time between the Paschal Feast and Pentecost. Vulgate (cf. Syriac) reads “cum complerentur dies Pentecostes,” and so all English versions have “days” except A. and R.V. The verb is only used by St. Luke in the N.T., twice in his Gospel, Luke 8:23, and in the same sense as here, Luke 9:51, and once more in the passage before us. We have the noun συμπλήρωσις in the same sense in LXX 2 Chronicles 36:21, Dan. (Theod.) Acts 9:2 1Es 1:58; see Friedrich, ubi supra, p. 44. The mode of expression is Hebraistic, as we see also from Exodus 7:25; Jeremiah 36:10 (LXX). St. Luke may be using the expression of a day which had begun, according to Jewish reckoning, at the previous sunset, and which thus in the early morning could not be said to be either fulfilled or past, but which was in the process of being fulfilled (Hilgenfeld, Zeitschrift für wissenschaft. Theol., p. 90, 1895; Knabenbauer, in loco). The parallel passage in Luke 9:51 cannot be quoted to support the view that the reference here is to a period preceding the day of Pentecost, since in that passage we have ἡμέρας, not ἡμέραν as here, and, although the interpretation of the word as referring to the approach of the Feast is possible, yet the circumstances and the view evidently taken by the narrator point decisively to the very day of the Feast (see Schmid, Biblische Theol., p. 283). On the construction ἐν τῷ with the infinitive, see Blass, Grammatik des N. G., pp. 232, 234, and Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, p. 27. It is quite in the style of St. Luke, who frequently employs it; cf. the Hebrew use of בְּ, Friedrich, p. 13, ubi supra, Lekebusch, Apostelgeschichte, p. 75). On Spitta's forced interpretation of the word, see p. 100. τῆς Πεντηκοστῆς : no occasion to add ἡμέρα, as the word was used as a proper name (although as an adjective ἡμέρα would of course be understood with it); cf. 2Ma 12:32 (Tob 2:1), μετὰ δὲ τὴν λεγομ. Πεντηκοστήν. ἅπαντες, i.e., the hundred-and-twenty as well as the Apostles (Chrysostom, Jerome), and the expression may also have included other disciples who were present in Jerusalem at the Feast (so Hilgenfeld, Wendt, Holtzmann). This interpretation appears to be more in accordance with the wide range of the prophecy, Acts 2:16-21. ὁμοθυμαδὸν, see above on Acts 2:14. ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό may simply = “together,” so that of the two expressions ὁμοῦ, R.V., and this phrase “alterum abundat” (Blass, Weiss); but the reference may be to the room in which they were previously assembled; cf. Acts 1:15.

[114] literal, literally.