What Does Acts 10:10 Mean?
And he became very hungry and longed to taste, but while they made ready, he fell beside himself.
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
And he became very hungry, and would have eaten: but while they made ready, he fell into a trance,THE KEY
The Greek word for “trance” belongs to the stand-root family: here, ordinary awareness is displaced while the meal is still being prepared.
THE MEANING
Your need is not erased: hunger is real, and food is already being prepared. In the waiting, ordinary awareness gives way to a trance. The verse holds bodily need and vision in one present moment.
THE ROOT
ἔκστασις
ekstasis
GROWS FROM
ἵστημι (histēmi), in the compound ἐξίστημι (existēmi)
To stand or set in place; with ἐκ (ek, out), to move or put out of an ordinary position.
“fell beside himself” in this verse is ekstasis. The noun ἔκστασις describes a state of displacement, including astonishment or a trance. Its stand-root also appears in words for rising, revealing a shift in position beneath the English word “trance.”
ALSO GROWS
existēmi: To displace, amaze, or throw into astonishment.
ἐξίστημι
This verb shows the family’s movement out of an ordinary state, the sense carried by Peter’s trance.
anastasis: A rising or resurrection; standing up again.
ἀνάστασις
It shares the stand-root, showing how Greek uses the same root family for a change in one’s position.
THE PATTERN
In scripture, vision is associated with ordinary awareness being suspended or displaced.
He declares, who hears and responds to the words of God, who beholds the sight of the Almighty, falling down, and his eyes uncovered.In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls upon men, in slumber upon the bed.And it happened, when I had turned back to Jerusalem, and while I was praying in the temple, that I came to be beside myself.THE THREAD
I was in the city of Joppa praying, and beside myself I saw a vision. A vessel coming down, like a great sheet let down from heaven by four corners, and it came even to me.Peter later recounts this same moment using the same Greek word, ἔκστασις (ekstasis), “trance.” The later telling names what comes into view in the suspended moment: a vessel descending, opening the vision that begins here.
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