What Does Acts 2:19 Mean?

(19) **And I will shew wonders in heaven above**.—St. Peter quotes the words of terror that follow, apparently, for the sake of the promise with which they end in Acts 2:21. But as it was not given to him as yet to know the times and the seasons (Acts 1:7), it may well have been that he looked for the “great and notable day” as about to come in his own time. The imagery is drawn as from one of the great thunder-storms of Palestine. There is the lurid blood-red hue of clouds and sky; there are the fiery flashes, the columns or pillars of smoke-like clouds boiling from the abyss. These, in their turn, were probably thought of as symbols of bloodshed, and fire and smoke, such as are involved in the capture and destruction of a city like Jerusalem.