Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Corinthians 14:5

"Now I would have you all speak with tongues, but rather that ye should prophesy: and greater is he that prophesieth than he that speaketh with tongues, except he interpret, that the church may receive edifying." — 1 Corinthians 14:5 (ASV)

I would that ye all spake with tongues.—To avoid the danger of misunderstanding or misrepresentation, the Apostle emphatically asserts here that the error that he is combating is the undue exaltation of the gift of tongues to the depreciation of other gifts. The teacher of religious truth to others, who thereby builds up the whole edifice of the body of Christ, is greater than the one who is himself benefited by being possessed of profound but uncommunicable emotion.

Except he interpret.—The gift of interpreting might therefore belong to the same person who had the gift of tongues; and if he had this power of articulating for the benefit of others the emotion that he incoherently expresses in reverie, then the gift of tongues was useful to the Church at large, and so was as valuable as prophecy.