A vital element in this passage on Pentecost is the tongues as of fire which then came upon each believer. What is the meaning behind these tongues of fire? This is a symbol, a sign they were very familiar with and especially in the 1st century. For Israel this symbol came to represent a symbol of forgiveness and freedom.
During Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement for all Israel, the Talmud tells us that a red, tongue-shaped strip of cloth was tied to the entrance of the temple. This tongue shape cloth was to signify if they were forgiven. It is written in the Talmud that if the strip turned white by the end of the day, it was taken as a sign that the people’s sins had been forgiven, and they would rejoice.
This was based on Isaiah 1:18 where God said, “Come now, and let us reason together,” says the LORD, “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. The white tongue shaped cloth signified that they were forgiven, and this miracle comes from their own writings.
Furthermore, another tongue-shaped strip was attached in between the horns of the goat that would carry the sins of Israel to the wilderness. (Strack, M.Yoma 4:2 & 6:6). It also turned white to show that God had forgiven them.
But the Talmud reveals something even more powerful than this. While this red tongue-shaped strip turned white for some 1500 years, it did stop turning white at one point in history. According to the Talmud, this change occurred 40 years before the destruction of the Temple, around 30 A.D., which coincides with the death and resurrection of Yeshua.
See the wonderful miracle of Pentecost! See the fulfillment in Acts 2, when these same tongue-shaped fires appeared on the believers as if to affirm that Pentecost is completely fulfilled. Now the Spirit of God had come to dwell in the hearts of every one of those who confess that Yeshua is the Messiah, as prophesied by Joel and Jeremiah and other prophets.
This the wonderful sign of Pentecost and it must have been such a great revelation to the disciples and the believers then, for these tongue shaped flames confirmed that now, redemption would be professed through them, through this new Body of the Messiah who, like the goat at Yom Kippur, would now go and confront this world and proclaim the Word of God. This is worth remembering every year, this is why this feast is so important.
Now see how the Bible describes the coming of the Holy Spirit over the believers in Acts 2 “….suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.” The word wind in Hebrew and Greek is the same word for Spirit. So, we can read that suddenly there came a sound from heaven, the Rouah Ha Kodesh came, and filled the whole house they were sitting. The sound, reminds us of what ancient rabbis then called the voice of the Spirit, Bat Kol, the Daughter of the Voice, or the Voice of God. They understood that God’s presence is made manifest by His Word and that the word is made manifest through a voice.
But now, notice the word mighty, biaos in Greek. This word is only used here in Acts 2:2 but this is the very same word that the 70 rabbis who translated the Bible into Greek in the Septuagint, in the 3rd century B.C. used to describe the east in their translation of Psalm 48:7 where it speaks of the east wind which came from heaven. And so we can read, suddenly there came a sound from heaven, the Spirit coming from the east, and it filled the whole house from where they were sitting. But why the east?
This is the very mountain where Jesus stood in Acts 1 when He also departed from Jerusalem. And it is also at this same place in the east of Jerusalem, where Yeshua will come and stand at the very mountain He left from, the Mount of Olives as Zechariah prophesied. And so, the new era of the Body of the Messiah composed of Jews and Gentiles was inaugurated by the indwelling of the Spirit of God.