What Does Acts 1:6 Mean?
So when they had come together, they asked him, saying, Lord, will you at this time stand the governance back up for Israel?
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?THE KEY
The Greek “restore” carries the image of setting something back in place, while “kingdom” makes that restoration a question of rule.
THE MEANING
The question treats restoration as concrete: the kingdom is to be restored to Israel, while the timing remains uncertain. The Greek verb carries the image of setting something back into place, and “kingdom” names a reign. The verse leaves that longing for restored rule as a live question.
THE ROOT
ἀποκαθιστάνεις
apokathistaneis
GROWS FROM
στη-
στή- (stē-), in the recognized στ- family of standing and setting: to stand, set, or place.
“stand back up” in this verse is apokathistaneis. The verb ἀποκαθιστάνεις (apokathistaneis, “you restore”) is built with ἀπό (apo, “back”) and καθίστημι (kathistēmi, “set in place”), from the family of ἵστημι (histēmi, “stand or set”). Restoration therefore carries the image of setting something back into place.
ALSO GROWS
histēmi: Stand; set or place.
ἵστημι
This is the base verb in the standing and setting family that underlies the verse’s restore verb.
kathistēmi: Set in place; appoint or establish.
καθίστημι
The verse’s compound carries this setting action, with ἀπό adding the sense of back.
anastasis: Rising; resurrection.
ἀνάστασις
Its στα- form shares the στ consonants of the standing family, showing the related image of rising to stand.
βασιλείαν
basileian
GROWS FROM
βασιλ-
βασιλ- (basil-), the king-and-rule stem: royal authority and reign.
“governance” in this verse is basileian. βασιλεία (basileia, “kingdom or reign”) belongs to the same family as βασιλεύς (basileus, “king”) and βασιλεύω (basileuō, “to reign”). The family keeps the emphasis on royal rule itself: the question concerns where that rule is given and exercised, not only a place called a kingdom.
ALSO GROWS
basileus: King.
βασιλεύς
The kingdom word shares its βασιλ- stem with the one who holds the rule.
basileuō: Reign; exercise kingship.
βασιλεύω
This verb makes explicit the action of rule contained in the kingdom word.
THE PATTERN
Restoration sets back what has been displaced, and its scope can widen from a people to all things.
A Song of degrees. When the LORD turned again the return of Zion, we were like dreamers.And I will make whole for you the years that the locust has eaten, the lapper, the gnawer, and the shearer, my great army which I sent among you.Whom the heaven must take in until the times of setting upright again of all things, which God has spoken through the mouth of his set-apart prophets from the ages.THE THREAD
Whom the heaven must take in until the times of setting upright again of all things, which God has spoken through the mouth of his set-apart prophets from the ages.Acts 3:21 uses ἀποκαταστάσεως (apokatastaseōs, “of restoration”), a cognate in the same Greek setting-back family as the verb here. Its phrase “all things” widens the question from the kingdom’s return to Israel to the scope of restoration itself.
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