Acts 2:19

The word σημεῖα is wanting in the Hebrew and the LXX, but the co-ordination of the two words τέρας and σημεῖον is frequent in the N.T. (John 4:48; Acts 4:30; Romans 15:19; 2 Corinthians 12:12), and even more so in the LXX (Exodus 7:3; Exodus 7:9; Deuteronomy 4:34; Nehemiah 9:10; Daniel 6:27), so also in Josephus, Philo, Plutarch, Polybius. For the distinction between the words in the N.T., see below on Acts 2:22. τέρας is often used of some startling portent, or of some strange appearance in the heavens, so here fitly used of the sun being turned into darkness, etc. But God's τέρατα are always σημεῖα to those who have eyes to see, and significantly in the N.T. the former word is never found without the latter. It is no doubt true to say that St. Peter had already received a sign from heaven above in the ἦχος ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, and a sign upon the earth below in the λαλεῖν ἑτέραις γλώσσαις (Nösgen), but the whole context, Acts 2:19-21, shows that St. Peter's thoughts had passed from the day of Pentecost to a period of grace and warning which should precede the Parousia. No explanation, therefore, of the words which limits their fulfilment to the Pentecostal Feast (see Keil, in loco, and also his reference to the interpretation of the Rabbis) is satisfactory. σημεῖα is probably introduced into the text to emphasise the antithesis, as also are ἄνω and κάτω. αἷμα καὶ πῦρ : if we see in these words σημεῖα ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς κάτω, there is no need to refer them to such startling phenomena as rain of blood, or fiery meteors, or pillars of smoke rising from the earth (so De Wette, Overbeck), but rather to the bloodshed and devastation of war (so Holtzmann, Wendt, Felten); cf. our Lord's words, Matthew 24:6; Matthew 24:29. Dean Plumptre thinks of the imagery as drawn from one of the great thunderstorms of Palestine, and cf. Weber, Jüdische Theologie, pp. 350, 351 (1897).