In the English text then simply serves to mark the temporal sequence. A similar device may be useful in other languages.

The verb phrase which is rendered by the Good News Translation they saw is rendered in most translations as “appeared to them.” This is a verb stem related to the one discussed in 1.3, and, as mentioned there, it is quite likely that in the New Testament this verb has an active meaning.

What appeared to them were not tongues of fire, but what looked like tongues of fire. This is Luke’s way of reminding his readers that the natural object named (that is, tongue) is not intended to be an exact description, but only a likeness of that which actually appeared to the believers. The Greek expression “a tongue sat on each of them” is rendered variously in different translations, but it should be kept in mind that the text itself does not state how this was accomplished or where the tongues “sat” on each person. This is why the Good News Translation has translated each person there was touched by a tongue.

There is a semantic problem in the expression tongues of fire, since this type of combination does not make sense in many languages. In some instances one can employ a descriptive equivalent which is somewhat more explicit, for example, “like little flames which resembled tongues.” Note, however, that one does not wish to say that these were actual “flames.” One may have, for example, “they saw something which looked like little flames, in the shape of tongues.”

These tongues were spreading out (not “cloven tongues” or “divided tongues,” as some earlier translators described them), which means that each tongue was going out separately and resting on some person. The total picture then is that of many tongue-like objects, each looking like fire, and darting out separately and touching (or “resting on”) someone. The expression spreading out may be translated in some languages by a distributive expression, for example, “divided one to each person.”

The relationship of each person to a tongue may be described either by focusing upon the “tongue” or upon the “person,” for example, “a tongue was on (touched) each person,” “each person had a tongue on him,” or “each person was touched by a tongue.” It may be necessary, of course, to indicate that this “tongue” was one which “looked like a flame resembling the shape of a tongue.” Usually one can avoid some of this difficulty of reference by certain pronominal forms, for example, “one of these was on each person.”

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 .