“The meaning of the voice [refers to]…that language that is uttered…. What I say, will be unintelligible to him [the foreigner]; and what he says, will be unintelligible to me. We cannot understand one another any more than people can who speak different languages…. A barbarian…means one who speaks a different or a foreign language.”
Paraphrase of I Corinthians 14:13-14
Declares Paul: “He, therefore, who speaks in a foreign language [while in the congregation] — let him pray that he himself may translate it [for the benefit of his otherwise-uncomprehending ‘foreign’ listeners]! For if I pray [publically] in a foreign language [known to me but not known to my foreign listeners], my spirit then indeed prays” — even though the spirits of my foreign listeners do not. Isa. 28:11-12 cf. I Cor. 14:21-22.
