If you travel through 1Cor 14 you will see what may very well be Paul's main concern which is with the unintelligible use of tongues within the congregational meetings at Corinth where each tongue is not subsequently articulated/interpreted.
To save some time, if you check the brief excerpts from the following peer-reviewed commentaries this should help you to understand that tongues are always spoken as inarticulate non-human communications, where they are also always directed to the Father and never to man. Congregational prophecy which is always given in the local language is how the Holy Spirit speaks to a congregation or to an individual and this does not involve tongues.
The following commentaries are all well known and if you happen to be near a Christian University library then you will be able to view each book in greater depth if you wish.
_________________
(Published 1958/85) Leon Morris,
1 Corinthians (Principle, Ridley College, Melbourne Australia)
p.167
The ability to speak in different kinds of tongues appears to have been a special form of speech when the person uttering the words did not know what they meant (unless he also had the gift of interpretation). Some have interpreted this from Acts 2, where ‘tongues’ seems to mean speaking in a foreign language. But it is difficult to see this here. Whereas in Acts 2 the characteristic is intelligibility (Acts 2:8-11), here the characteristic is unintelligibility (‘no-one understands him’, 14:2).
The gift here is not part of the church’s evangelistic programme
[1] (as in Acts 2), but one exercised among believers. It is not understood by people who speak other languages, but requires a special gift of interpretation.
(1987) D.A. Carson,
Showing the Spirit: A Theological exposition of 1 Corinthians 12 -14, p.52
It is not clear whether either Paul or his readers thought their gifts of tongues were the dialects of angels. A few interesting Jewish parallels make this possible, but Paul may be writing hyperbolically to draw as sharp a contrast as possible with love. I suppose a pedant might argue that they cannot be the tongues of angels, because in that case it would be silly for tongues to cease when perfection comes since that is precisely when we are more likely to encounter angels
[2]! But I shall leave the question as to what language or languages we shall speak in the new heavens and on the new earth to those more gifted in speculation than I.
(1985) David Prior,
The Message of 1 Corinthians,
p.240
In classical Greek there were three nuances in the verb to explain or interpret, to articulate or express clearly, to translate. Colin Brown has written: ‘It would seem that Paul is not thinking of interpretation in the sense of translating one language into another, which would presume that tongues had a coherent scheme of grammar, syntax and vocabulary. Rather, interpretation here seems to be more akin to discerning what he Spirit is saying through the one who is speaking in tongues16.
Page Footnote:
16. ‘…”This sort of interpretation is clearly not to be understood in the sense of “translation” . . . The fits of interpretation is that of rendering intelligible the preconceptual spiritual ecstasy[3] of the tongues-speaker.’
p.242
The rest of our expectation of this chapter is based on the understanding that this gift is available to us today and is being experienced constructively as such in many churches in different countries. For this reason the rendering of glossai as ‘tongues’ will be followed.
(1987) Gordon D. Fee,
The First Epistle to the Corinthians, (Exegetical Scholar - AoG)
p.630
…“tongues of angels” would reflect an understanding that the tongues-speaker was communicating in the dialect(s) of heaven. That the Corinthians at least, and probably Paul, thought of tongues as the language(s) of angels seems highly likely – for two reasons:…”
(1999) Marion L. Soards,
1 Corinthians, (Prof. NT Studies, Louisville Presbyterian Theo. College)
pp.281-82
…Paul offers a reflection on these two gifts that informs the readers that
anyone who speaks in a tongue does not address people but God, and no human understands because the speaker
utters mysteries with his spirit (lit. “but in spirit speaks mysteries”). According to Paul’s teaching, there is a clear point and a clear audience for tongues, but other humans are not the intended recipients of the message and so they do not comprehend the substance of the speech in tongues or benefit from it.
Additional Notes p.282
The Gk. Word glossa means tongue or “language,” but its use here refers to spiritual utterance. From Paul’s discussion of this phenomenon one finds that to speak in a tongue was a supernatural gift. It was not speech in an unstudied human language or dialect. . . Tongue speaking benefited the speaker as a direct spiritual communication to God (14:2, 16-17), but without interpretation it had no capacity for benefiting the congregation, even when spoken in the assembly (14:17, 27-28).
In setting the word spirit with a lower case “s” and in rendering the phrase “with his spirit” rather than “in the spirit,” the NIV interprets Paul’s use of the word (Gk. Pneuma) to refer to the spirit of the human speaker. This reading is possible, perhaps correct; yet, Paul’s ambiguous phrase in Gk. Contains the possibility that Paul meant to indicate that a tongue speaker spoke “in the Spirit of God,” so that the unintelligibility of the speaking was because of the divine origin of the language. A final decision for this question of translation is impossible and not crucial for grasping the basic sense of Paul’s statement.
(2000) Paul Barnet,
1 Corinthians, (Lect. At Macquarie Univ. Anglican Bishop)
pp.254-55
Verses 2 and 4 help solve several riddles. One is to identify ‘the spiritual things’ of the previous verse. It is pretty clear (at least to me) that ‘the spiritual things’ of verse 1 are now defined as ‘tongues-speaking…speaking mysteries in the Spirit’ in verses 2 and 3, something Paul earlier called ‘tongues of men and of angels’ (see on 13:1), a heavenly dialect.
p.243
…Most likely such ‘speech’ was ecstatic, and believed to be the dialect of the angels in heaven.
(2003) David E. Garland,
1 Corinthians (Dean of George W. Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University)
p.586
Sixth, if one kind of tongue applies to the unspeakable groanings— sighs too deep for words—in which the Spirit intercedes in Rom. 8:26— 27 (Stendahl 1977: 111; cf. Macchia 1992), it offers new insights into Paul’s understanding of this phenomenon. Kasemann (1971: 134) contends that far from being a sign that the Christian community has been translated with Christ into heavenly existence (the view taken by the Corinthian enthusiasts), the apostle (Paul) hears in these things the groans of those who, though called to liberty, still lie tempted and dying and cry to be born again with the new creation.” Tongues, from this perspective, are a sign of weakness, not spiritual superiority. We do not know how to pray except with unspeakable groans, and the Spirit comes to our aid. As a token of our weakness, it explains why tongues will end (1 Cor. 13:8). Dunn (1988a: 493) thinks it unlikely that Paul has glossolalia in mind when he speaks of inarticulate groaning, but comments that if glossolalia was recognized as something undignifying, something beneath man’s self-respect as a rational being (cf. 1 Cor. 14:20),” then it would "be of a similar order to the wordless groaning,” expressing “human helplessness, ignorance, and inarticulateness."
p.611
The nature of speaking in tongues has been dealt with in the discussion of 12:8-10. The question arises here whether the “tongues of angels" are an expansion of human tongues or hyperbole. Petzer (1989: 239-40) thinks that the phrase’s emphatic position after the verb (“if in the tongues of humans I speak and of angels") means that “the tongues of angels" are not simply an extension of human tongues. The two are not linked. Petzer takes Paul to mean: even if speaking in human tongues “could be perfected to such an extent that it would be comparable to the angelic tongues. . . ." Petzer assumes that Paul exaggerates (Petzer’s term is “defamiliarizes") by putting glossolalia out of the reach of ordinary humans (see also Sigountos 1994: 252-53). These are tongues beyond any ever known by humans. The parallel with 13:2, “having prophecy and knowing all mysteries," suggests that the two items listed are distinct and that the last element is hyperbole.
I have presented evidence earlier, however, that speaking in the tongues of angels would not have been regarded as unattainable (see comments on 12:8-10). Pauls rapture into the third heaven, into paradise, where he heard things that a human may not speak, assumes that he heard things in some heavenly tongue (2 Cor. 12:1-4). It is more likely that he poses a realistic possibility that some may indeed believe that they speak in a celestial language (cf. the combination of humans and angels in 1 Cor. 4:9 [so Spicq 1965: 145; Conzelmann 1975: 221 n. 27]). In fact, to identify as hyperbole the second element in the next verses is misleading. Faith to move mountains does not refer literally to moving mountains but is an idiom for doing what is impossible. Giving one's body is also not an exaggeration, because many Christians had done so. The ascending scale in the dazzle factor of the gifts described is not correlated to their impossibility but to their potential to accrue greater glory for the individual.
(2010) Roy E. Ciampa/Brian S. Rosner,
The First Letter to the Corinthians, (Both are Professors in NT Studies)
p.670
For those who speak in a tongue do not speak to other people but to God. Witherington thinks that the fact that Paul says that those who speak in a tongue do not speak to other people but to God is “a clear indication that glossolalia was seen as a prayer language or as a way to talk to God, not as a human language. It does not indicate that it was not a human language, but that he did not expect that those gathered would normally know whatever was being spoken. It does suggest that speaking in tongues was understood as prayer, a view that is consistent with Paul’s other comments on the subject.
