2:11a

Jews: This word refers to people born to parents who are Jews.

converts to Judaism: This phrase refers to non-Jewish people who had become Jews by doing the religious rites necessary to declare that they follow the Jewish religion. These people had stopped following their old religion. Here are some other ways to translate this phrase:

Gentiles converted to Judaism (Good News Translation)
-or-
proselytes (New Jerusalem Bible)

2:11b

Cretans: In the context of this list, Cretans refers to Jews who grew up on the island of Crete. The island of Crete is in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea south of Greece.

Arabs: In the context of this list, Arabs refers to Jews who grew up in the region of Arabia. Arabia was west of Mesopotamia and east and south of Syria and present-day Israel.

2:11c

The list of places and peoples ended in 2:11b. In 2:11c the crowd spoke of the amazement regarding the Galileans speaking their languages. In some languages this change of topic would imply contrast. For example:

⌊But⌋ we hear them…

we hear them declaring…in our own tongues: This clause indicates that each person in the crowd heard a believer speaking in that person’s language. Here are some other ways to translate this clause:

all of us hear them speaking in our own languages (Good News Translation)
-or-
we hear them preaching in our own language (New Jerusalem Bible)

the wonders of God: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as wonders means “mighty acts” or “great deeds.” It probably refers to what God did for mankind through Jesus. Here are some other ways to translate this phrase:

the mighty deeds of God (New American Standard Bible)
-or-
the great things that God has done (Good News Translation)
-or-
God’s deeds of power (New Revised Standard Version)

© 2001, 2021 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.