It is not difficult to trace the origin of the account in Acts and, although we cannot here pause to do so with any minuteness, we may at least indicate the lines upon which the narrative is based. There is no doubt that then, as now, the Jews commemorated at the feast of Pentecost the giving of the law on Sinai.(2) It seemed {377} good to the author of Acts that the prophet like unto Moses,(1) who was to abrogate that law and replace it by a dispensation of grace, should inaugurate the new law of love and liberty(2) with signs equally significant and miraculous. It is related in Exodus xix. 18 that the Lord descended upon Sinai "in fire," and that the whole mount quaked greatly. The voice of God pronounced the decalogue and, as the Septuagint version renders our Ex. xx. 18: "All the people saw the voice, and the lightnings and the voice of the trumpet and the mountain smoking."(3) According to Rabbinical tradition, however, when God came down to give the law to the Israelites, he appeared not to Israel alone, but to all the other nations, and the voice in which the law was given went to the ends of the earth and was heard of ail peoples.(4) It will be remembered that the number of the nations was supposed to be seventy, each speaking a different language, and the law was given in the one sacred Hebrew tongue. The Rabbins explained, however: "The voice from Sinai was divided into 70 voices and 70 languages, so that all nations of the earth heard (the law), and each heard it actually in its own language."(5) And again: "Although the ten commandments were promulgated with one single tone, yet it is said (Exod. xx. 15), 'All people heard the voices' (in the plural and not the voice in the singular); "the reason is: As the voice went forth it was divided into seven voices, {378}