1 Corinthians 14:10

10 There are, we will suppose, a great number of languages in the world, and no creature is without a language.

1 Corinthians 14:10 Meaning and Commentary

1 Corinthians 14:10

There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices
(anvl) , "tongues", or "languages", as the Syriac version renders it; that is, as many as there are nations in the world; there may be seventy of them, as the Jews say there were at the confusion of languages at Babel; there may be more or less:

and none of them is without signification:
every language, and every word in a language, has a meaning in it, an idea annexed to it, which it conveys to him that understands it, and that cannot be done without a voice ordinarily speaking.

1 Corinthians 14:10 In-Context

8 If the bugle--to take another example--gives an uncertain sound, who will prepare for battle?

9 And so with you; if with the living voice you fail to utter intelligible words, how will people know what you are saying? You will be talking to the winds.

10 There are, we will suppose, a great number of languages in the world, and no creature is without a language.

11 If, however, I do not know the meaning of the particular language, I shall seem to the speaker of it, and he to me, to be merely talking some foreign tongue.

12 Therefore, seeing that you are ambitious for spiritual gifts, seek to excel in them so as to benefit the Church.