What Does Acts 11:13 Mean?
And he reported to us how he had seen a messenger in his house, who stood and said to him, Send men to Joppa, and call for Simon, whose surname is Peter.
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 shewed us how he had seen an angel in his house, which stood and said unto him, Send men to Joppa, and call for Simon, whose surname is Peter;THE KEY
The Greek command sends men to Joppa and then sends for Simon, what English separates as “send” and “call” is a chain of two sendings.
THE MEANING
A message arrives within a house and immediately becomes movement outward: one messenger’s words send people to seek Simon. Revelation moves through a chain of messengers, each carrying the next step toward its recipient.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A vision is not necessarily a private endpoint; here, what is seen becomes a direction that sends other people toward the one being summoned.
THE ROOT
μετάπεμψαι
metapempsai
GROWS FROM
πέμπω
pempō
To send or dispatch; μετάπεμψαι is built on this verb and means to send for or summon.
“Call for” can sound like speech alone, but the Greek verb carries the sense of sending for someone. The command sends men outward to Joppa and also sends for Simon: the summons itself is another dispatch.
ALSO GROWS
pempō: Send, dispatch
πέμπω
This is the base verb beneath the word translated “call for.”
metapempō: Send for, summon
μεταπέμπω
This compound names the second sending in the command: Simon is summoned by being sent for.
Ἀπόστειλον
aposteilon
GROWS FROM
στέλλω
stéllō
To send or dispatch; ἀποστέλλω adds the sense of sending away.
“Send” in this verse is aposteilon. The verb for sending belongs to the same word family as ἀπόστολος, the word for a sent one or envoy. The command does not merely pass along information; it sets people in motion as bearers of the message.
ALSO GROWS
apostellō: Send away, dispatch
ἀποστέλλω
This is the verb behind “Send men to Joppa.”
apostolos: A sent one, envoy
ἀπόστολος
The related noun names a person by the sending that gives them a task.
ἄγγελον
angelon
GROWS FROM
ἀγγελ-
angel-
Message or announcement; ἄγγελος means a messenger who carries one.
The word translated “angel” identifies the figure by its role as a messenger. That role leads directly into the verse’s sending verbs: the message-bearer speaks, and other people are sent to carry the next part of the message.
ALSO GROWS
angelos: Messenger, envoy
ἄγγελος
This is the noun used for the messenger who appears in the house.
euangelion: Good message, good news
εὐαγγέλιον
This related message-word shows the same family carrying the idea of news that is announced.
THE PATTERN
A message becomes movement as it passes through successive sendings.
The LORD, the God of the heavens, who took me from my father's house, and from the land of my birth, who spoke to me, and swore to me, saying, To your seed will I give this land; he shall send his messenger before you, and you shall take a wife for my son from there.Then Jesus said to them again, Wholeness be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.So they, sent out by the Set-Apart Breath, went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus.THE THREAD
And now send men to Joppa, and call for one Simon, whose surname is Peter.This is the angel’s command in its first telling, using the same Greek verb for “send.” Acts 11:13 repeats the instruction, and the shared root links the retelling to the dispatch that begins the chain.
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