Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Acts 1:6

"They therefore, when they were come together, asked him, saying, Lord, dost thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" — Acts 1:6 (ASV)

The question the disciples asked reflects the embers of a once blazing hope for a political theocracy in which they would be leaders (cf. Mark 9:33–34; 10:35–41). Now the embers are fanned by Jesus’ talk of the coming Holy Spirit. In Jewish expectations, the restoration of Israel’s fortunes would be marked by the revived activity of God’s Spirit, who had been withheld since the last of the prophets. But though his words about the Spirit’s coming rekindled in the disciples their old nationalistic hopes, Jesus had something else in mind.