Hechos 2:5-6

The Jews living in Jerusalem were probably people from the Diaspora (dispersion, residing outside the land of Palestine) who had returned to settle down in the Jewish homeland. Luke’s other uses of katoikountes ("living") are in Acts 1:20; Acts 7:2; Acts 7:4; Acts 7:48; Acts 9:22; Acts 11:29; Acts 13:27; Acts 17:24; Acts 17:26; and Acts 22:12, and these suggest permanence compared with epidemeo ("sojourning") in Acts 2:10.

"It was . . . customary for many pious Jews who had spent their lives abroad to return to end their days as close to the Temple as possible." [Note: Neil, p. 73. Cf. Kent, p. 30, n. 9.]

A list of nations from which they had come follows in Acts 2:9-10. The sound that attracted attention may have been the wind (Acts 2:2) or the sound of the tongues speakers (Acts 2:4). The Greek word translated "noise" in Acts 2:2 is echos, but the word rendered "sound" in Acts 2:6 is phones. The context seems to favor the sound of the tongues speakers. Acts 2:2 says the noise filled the house where the disciples were, but there is no indication that it was heard outside the house. Also Acts 2:6 connects the sound with the languages being spoken. The text does not clearly identify when what was happening in the upper room became public knowledge or when the disciples moved out of the upper room to a larger venue. Evidently upon hearing the sound these residents of Jerusalem assembled to investigate what was happening.

When they found the source of the sound, they were amazed to discover Galileans speaking in the native languages of the remote regions from which these Diaspora Jews had come. The Jews in Jerusalem who could not speak Aramaic would have known Greek, so there was no need for other languages. Yet what they heard were the languages that were common in the remote places in which they had lived. Perhaps the sound came from the upper room initially, and then when the disciples moved out into the streets the people followed them into the Temple area. Since about 3,000 people became Christians this day (Acts 2:41) the multitude (Acts 2:6) must have numbered many thousands. About 200,000 people could assemble in the temple area. [Note: J. P. Polhill, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 118, footnote 135; Joachim Jeremias, Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus, p. 83.] This fact has led some interpreters to assume that that may have been where this multitude congregated.