And when they heard it
The narrative of the wonderful spread of the Gospel among the Gentiles, and the numerous conversions of them:
they glorified the Lord;
or "God", as the Alexandrian copy, the Vulgate Latin, and Ethiopic versions read; as Paul ascribed all to God, so they give the glory of it to him, and in this they were both agreed:
and said unto him;
perhaps James in the name of them all, and as their mouth:
thou seest, brother;
for so he was to James, both as a believer, and a minister of the word, and as an apostle:
how many thousands of Jews there are which believe;
there were many thousands converted at Jerusalem upon the first preaching of the Gospel, after Christ's ascension; see ( Acts 2:41 Acts 2:47 ) ( Acts 4:4 Acts 4:14 ) ( 6:7 ) and the number might be much increased since; though it may be, that reference is had not only to the number of the members of the church at Jerusalem, but to all the believing Jews in Judea, who were now come up to Jerusalem, to keep the feast of Pentecost; since it is in the Greek, "how many myriads there are", and one myriad contains ten thousand:
and they are all zealous of the law;
of the law of Moses, of the ceremonial law, as Paul might see by their being at Jerusalem, to keep this feast; for though they believed in Jesus of Nazareth as the true Messiah, yet they had not light enough to see, that he was the sum and substance of all the ceremonies of the law, and that they all ended in him; and therefore were zealous in the observance of them, and could not bear to hear of their abrogation.