What Does Acts 10:6 Mean?
He lodges with one Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the sea; he will speak to you what you must do.
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
He lodgeth with one Simon a tanner, whose house is by the sea side: he shall tell thee what thou oughtest to do.THE KEY
A human voice is the route by which the next necessary action comes into view.
THE MEANING
The next step becomes specific through another person’s words, and the route to those words runs through an ordinary house and its guest. What is needed can be spoken before the whole path is visible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that direction must arrive privately and all at once: here, the needed action comes through another person’s speech.
THE ROOT
ξενίζεται
xenizetai
GROWS FROM
ξένος
xenos
stranger, foreigner, or guest
“lodgeth” in this verse is xenizetai. The same Greek word family can name someone as a stranger or as a guest, then name the act of receiving them. The guidance in this verse is located through a guest in a host’s house: an unfamiliar route into the next step is already part of the sentence.
ALSO GROWS
xenizō: to lodge as a guest or host a stranger
ξενίζω
This is the verb behind “lodgeth,” making the guest-host relationship part of how the instruction is found.
philoxenia: hospitality; love of strangers
φιλοξενία
This branch names the welcome that turns a stranger’s presence into a human connection.
ποιεῖν
poiein
GROWS FROM
ποιέω
poieō
to make, do, or bring about
The verb for “do” belongs to a family that also names a thing made and its maker: action is something concrete, brought about. The verse joins that action to spoken guidance, so the needed step is not left as vague pressure.
ALSO GROWS
poiēma: a thing made; a work
ποίημα
This branch makes the action in view concrete: it is something that can be brought into being.
poiētēs: a maker or doer
ποιητής
This branch connects the action to the person who carries it out after the instruction is spoken.
THE PATTERN
A next step can be disclosed through another person’s speech, with ordinary encounters serving as the route of guidance.
And now go, and I will be with your mouth, and I will teach you what you will speak.And he said, How can I, unless someone show me the way? And he urged Philip to come up and sit with him.Trembling and astonished, he said, Lord, what do you want me to do? And the Lord said to him, Stand up, and enter the city, and it will be told you what you must do.THE THREAD
Trembling and astonished, he said, Lord, what do you want me to do? And the Lord said to him, Stand up, and enter the city, and it will be told you what you must do.The clause “what thou must do” is repeated here, with the speaker made explicit: in Acts 10, the lodger will tell you. Together, the verses show guidance arriving as a spoken answer through a person.
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