Later text
Acts 2:2BSB
Suddenly a sound like a mighty rushing wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.
Intertextuality Pair
Acts 2:2 → Exodus 14:21
Allusion
Earlier text
Exodus 14:21BSB
Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the LORD drove back the sea with a strong east wind that turned it into dry land. So the waters were divided,
+ 3 more earlier texts
Earlier text
Exodus 19:18BSB
Mount Sinai was completely enveloped in smoke, because the LORD had descended on it in fire. And the smoke rose like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked violently.
Earlier text
Now a wind sent by the LORD came up, drove in quail from the sea, and brought them near the camp, about two cubits above the surface of the ground, for a day’s journey in every direction around the camp.
Earlier text
Then the LORD came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and He took some of the Spirit that was on Moses and placed that Spirit on the seventy elders. As the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied—but they never did so again.
Significance
The Spirit’s coming is marked by “a sound like a mighty rushing wind” (Acts 2:2), imagery that recalls the great theophanies of Israel’s founding. The same word for wind/breath (ruach / pnoe) drove back the exodus sea “by a strong east wind” (Exodus 14:21) and shook Sinai when “the LORD descended on it in fire” amid smoke and trembling (Exodus 19:18), and the Spirit-wind rested on the seventy elders (Numbers 11:25). Luke frames Pentecost as a new covenant-inaugurating theophany: as the LORD came down in wind and fire to constitute Israel at Sinai, so the Spirit descends in wind and fire to constitute the church. Yet the escalation is decisive — at Sinai the people were barred from the mountain, but at Pentecost the fire rests on each believer and the law is written not on stone but on hearts. The wind and fire announce that the God who once drew near in terror now dwells within His people through the Spirit of the ascended Christ.
- Found via
- G.K. Beale & D.A. Carson (eds.), Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament
- Reference Type
- Allusion
- Connection Method(s)
- Typology + Longitudinal Theme
Linked Mentions 1