Acts 8:17

17 Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

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Acts 8:17 in Other Translations

KJV

17 Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost.

ESV

17 Then they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.

NLT

17 Then Peter and John laid their hands upon these believers, and they received the Holy Spirit.

MSG

17 Then the apostles laid their hands on them and they did receive the Holy Spirit.

CSB

17 Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

Acts 8:17 Meaning and Commentary

Acts 8:17

Then laid they their hands on them
The Ethiopic version adds, "who had been baptized"; but not upon all of them, men and women, only on some they were directed unto by the Spirit of God; whom he had designed, and now would qualify for the work of the ministry, that so this new church, might be supplied with proper officers, pastors, and teachers, to feed them with knowledge and with understanding, and who might not only have ministerial gifts to qualify them for preaching the Gospel, but extraordinary ones, which would serve for the confirmation of it; and for this purpose the apostles, "both" of them, as the Arabic version reads, laid their hands on them: for it will not seem probable, that they laid their hands upon the women, on such an account; and it will hardly be received, that they should lay their hands on Simon Magus, otherwise he would have received the Holy Ghost too; so that it seems a plain case, that imposition of hands was not used to them all:

and they received the Holy Ghost;
that is, they received the gifts of the Holy Ghost; so that they could prophesy and speak with tongues, and heal diseases, and do other wonderful works: and since now these effects have ceased, the rite and ceremony which was peculiar to the apostles as such, it should seem should cease likewise.

Taken from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible