And believers were the more added to the Lord
That is, to the church, as in ( Acts 2:47 ) over which Christ was Lord and head; for they were added to the Lord before, by believing in him, when they gave up themselves to him, to be saved by him; and now to the apostles, and the church by the will of God; and this case of Ananias and Sapphira was so far from hindering persons from coming into the church, that there were greater additions made to it than before, even of such as were true believers in Christ. The Ethiopic version reads, "and many were added who believed in our Lord"; the Arabic version, "they that believed in the Lord increased"; the Syriac version, "and they more increased who believed in the Lord"; and so the Vulgate Latin version, "but the multitude of them that believe in the Lord were the more increased"; all of them reading the phrase, "the Lord", not in construction with the word "added", but with "believers: multitudes both of men and women"; the weaker sex were not intimidated any more than the men, such power went along with the word, and such grace was bestowed upon them. This church must now be prodigiously numerous, for before these additions, eight thousand had been added to the hundred and twenty; such success the Gospel had, and such progress it made in the hands of such mean and contemptible persons, notwithstanding the opposition of the chief men of the nation to it.