“... Many of the visitors were astonished as they heard the loud praises of God uttered by the disciples in inspired language (this, rather than the noise of a rushing wind, is what is meant by the “sound” of v. 6), because they recognized the indigenous languages and dialects of their native lands. The visitors from the lands to the east knew Aramaic, and those from the lands to the west knew Greek, but neither Aramaic nor Greek was a strange tongue to the disciples. [...] When the law was given at Sinai, according to later rabbinic tradition, “the ten commandments were promulgated with a single voice, yet it says, ‘All the people perceived the voices’ (Ex. 20:18); this shows that when the voice went forth it was divided into seven voices and then went into seventy tongues, and every people received the law in its own language.” Late as this form of the tradition is, it was already accepted in some Jewish circles that Pentecost marked the anniversary of the giving of the law, and there may be an implied parallel between that event and what was now happening in the statement that people “from every nation under heaven” heard the praises of God, “each individual . . . in his own speech.” [...] Midrash Tanhuma 26c; cf. R. Yohanan (d. A.D. 279) in TB Shabbat 88b. The true sense of the words quoted from Ex. 20:18 is “all the people perceived the thunderings” (RSV). The “seventy tongues” correspond to the seventy nations enumerated in Gen. 10:2-31. ...”