Acts 2:7

ἐξίσταντο : frequent in St. Luke, three times in his Gospel, eight in the Acts, elsewhere once in St. Paul, once in St. Matthew, four times in St. Mark. The word is often found in the LXX in various senses; cf. for its meaning here Genesis 43:33, Jdt 13:17; Jdt 15:1, 1Ma 15:32; 1Ma 16:22. πάντες Γαλιλαῖοι : there is no need to suppose with Schöttgen (so Grotius, Olshausen) that the term implies any reference to the want of culture among the Galileans, as if in this way to emphasise the surprise of the questioners, or to explain the introduction of the term because the Galileans were “magis ad arma quam ad litteras et linguas idonei” (Corn. à Lapide). But if there is a reference to the peculiar dialect of the Galileans this might help to explain the introduction of Ἰουδαίαν in Acts 2:9 (Wetstein followed by Weiss, but see below). Weiss sees here, it is true, the hand of a reviser who thinks only of the Apostles and not of the hundred-and-twenty who could not be supposed to come under the term Γαλιλαῖοι. But whilst no doubt Γαλ. might be considered a fitting description of the Apostolic band (except Judas), Hilgenfeld well asks why the hundred-and-twenty should not have been also Galileans, if they had followed Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem.