Acts 2:5

How the Multitude were moved by the Miracle, 5-13.

Acts 2:5. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven.

Dwelling. The Greek word used here (ϰατοιϰοῡτες). according to classical usage, would convey the notion that the foreign Jews here alluded to were ‘residents' in the city; but the context of the passage, while fully allowing this sense, forbids us to limit it to residents merely; for the words in Acts 2:9, ‘dwellers in Mesopotamia,' etc., and in Acts 2:10, ‘strangers of (or better rendered ‘from') Rome,' clearly imply that these persons still had their homes in these distant lands, and were only present for a time in Jerusalem, most probably most of them on the occasion of the festival. It includes, then, those who dwelt there permanently, and strangers on a visit to the city.

Jews, devout men. ‘Devout men'(εὐλαβεῖς). The fact of their having left their country to dwell in the old centre of the theocracy, in the neighbourhood of the Temple, showed they were ‘devout men' in the Old Testament sense of the word (see Chrysostom in Meyer). Some of these men, influenced by strong religious sentiment, desirous probably of being near the Temple and passing the evening of their life in the Holy City, had permanently fixed their home in Jerusalem. The general and widespread belief, that the time had now come when Messiah should appear, no doubt had influenced many of these ‘devout men.'

Out of every nation under heaven. The Jews at this time were literally scattered over the whole world. Philo tells us how the Jews were dwelling in the greater number and in the more prosperous of the cities throughout the world. Agrippa, in Josephus, says: ‘There was no nation upon earth which had not Jews dwelling among them.'