What Does Acts 10:21 Mean?
Then Peter went down to the men who were sent to him from Cornelius, and said, Behold, I am the one you seek; what is the cause for which you have come?
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
Then Peter went down to the men which were sent unto him from Cornelius; and said, Behold, I am he whom ye seek: what is the cause wherefore ye are come?THE KEY
Here the search reaches a person before it reaches an explanation: Peter makes himself present, then asks why they have come.
THE MEANING
A summons can arrive before its purpose is clear. Peter identifies himself and comes down to meet the men, then asks what brings them; presence comes before explanation.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
You must understand the reason before you can meet what is coming toward you.
THE ROOT
ζητεῖτε
zēteite
GROWS FROM
ζητέω
zēteō
To seek, look for, or inquire after.
“seek” in this verse is zēteite. The same verb describes the men looking for Peter in the previous verse and Peter naming himself as their object here. Their search is not abstract longing: it arrives at a face and receives an answer.
ALSO GROWS
zētēsis: Inquiry or investigation.
ζήτησις
The men’s search is an inquiry that has brought them directly to Peter.
zētēma: A question or matter under investigation.
ζήτημα
Peter’s question about why they have come turns their search toward its still-unknown purpose.
ἀπεσταλμένους
apestalmenous
GROWS FROM
στέλλω (stellō), in ἀποστέλλω (apostellō)
To prepare or arrange; with the prefix, to send away or dispatch.
“sent” in this verse is apestalmenous. The men are presented as dispatched on Cornelius’s errand; their sending gives their arrival a purpose Peter has not yet heard. Their sending and their seeking meet at his door.
ALSO GROWS
apostolos: A messenger or one sent.
ἀπόστολος
The word carries the sense of a person dispatched with another’s purpose.
apostolē: A sending or commission.
ἀποστολή
This branch makes the men’s arrival part of an errand entrusted to them.
THE PATTERN
A search or call becomes an encounter when the person addressed is met with an answer before the full reason is clear.
And the LORD God called to Adam, and said to him, Where are you? And he said, I heard your voice in the garden, and I trembled, because I was bare; and I hid myself.And the LORD came, and stood, and called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speak, for your servant hears and responds.Then Jesus turned and watched them following, and said to them, What do you seek? They said to him, Teacher, where do you stay? He said to them, Come and see. They came and saw where he stayed, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour.THE THREAD
While Peter thought the vision through, the Breath said to him, Behold, three men seek you.The same seeking verb appears first in the message that three men are looking for Peter, then in Peter’s answer that he is the one they seek. The repeated word carries the search directly into a face-to-face meeting before its purpose is disclosed.
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