Miracles and wonders is the same expression which was discussed in 2.19. The force of the Greek verb is such as to indicate that the apostles were continuously causing miracles and wonders and that the people were constantly filled with awe.

One should note that the apostles are not spoken of as the primary agents of the miracles, but only as the secondary ones. God himself is the initiator, and he works through the apostles. In some instances this type of secondary agency can be expressed as “many miracles and wonders happened because of (or, through) the apostles,” but obviously not in the sense of “for their sake.” However, one can also translate as “the apostles did many miracles and wonders,” especially in those receptor languages which have no convenient devices for indicating secondary agency.

And this caused everyone to be filled with awe, the second clause in the English sentence structure, is the first clause in the Greek sentence, which has been inverted by the Good News Translation. This inversion of the order of the Greek text is made so as to follow the temporal sequence (first the miracles and then the awe), and in order to employ a cause-and-effect sequence (the events and the reactions to them). The phrase to be filled with awe is equivalent in some languages to “had great respect for” or “were deeply impressed by”; idiomatically, “their heads were bowed” or “they saw them (that is, the miracle) with open mouths.”

Everyone (literally “every soul”) may refer either to the believers (as the Good News Translation understands it) or to the nonbelievers. If everyone is taken to refer to the believers, then awe perhaps describes best their response; if everyone refers to nonbelievers, then the best description of their reaction may be that of “fear.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Acts of the Apostles. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1972. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .