When they finished praying (see New English Bible “when they had ended their prayer”) correctly translates the meaning of the Greek verb tense. The meeting place was shaken after they had finished praying, not while they were praying. The shaking of the meeting place (an indication that God had answered their prayers) and the filling with the Holy Spirit are most probably intended to be interpreted as simultaneous actions.

Rather than employ a passive was shaken with an ambiguous agent, it may be more satisfactory to use an intransitive such as “shook” or even “moved as in an earthquake.”

The passive expression they were all filled with the Holy Spirit can be rendered as “the Holy Spirit filled them all” or “the Holy Spirit came into all of them.” In some languages, however, the relationship of the Holy Spirit to the people must be one of “possession” or “commanding.” (See 1.8.)

Again Luke indicates that in his thinking the filling with the Holy Spirit is something which takes place on specific occasions in order to empower people to do a particular task. In this case, as in the earlier instances, the Holy Spirit enables them to speak God’s message with boldness.

The Good News Translation has tried to capture the flavor of the Greek verb tense by stating they began to speak, which apparently is the meaning in the context. Although some few understand the speaking in this present passage to be that of ecstatic speech, this is quite unlikely, inasmuch as the phrase used here, speak God’s message, along with several related phrases (see speak your message, v. 29), appear in the New Testament as technical terms for preaching the Christian message.

The phrase God’s message would certainly seem to be, especially in this type of context, “the message that comes from God,” or in more analytical form “they began to speak what God had told them to say.”

An expression for boldness should reflect the usage in verse 29 in which the people had prayed for boldness.

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 .