What Does Acts 11:7 Mean?
And I heard a voice saying to me, Rise, Peter; slaughter, and eat.
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 I heard a voice saying unto me, Arise, Peter; slay and eat.THE KEY
The voice places slaughter and nourishment in one command, while the next verses reveal that the boundary being challenged reaches beyond food to people.
THE MEANING
The voice calls Peter by name and commands him to rise, slay, and eat. The sequence stays bodily and direct: taking life and receiving nourishment stand side by side, without abstraction.
THE ROOT
θῦσον
thyson
GROWS FROM
θύω
thyō
to slaughter, kill, or sacrifice
The verb behind “slay” belongs to the same word family as sacrifice and offering. That family lets sacrificial language sound within the command, which immediately joins slaughter to eating.
ALSO GROWS
thysia: sacrifice, offering
θυσία
The related noun brings the language of an offering into the same word family as the act of killing.
thysiazō: to sacrifice, offer as a sacrifice
θυσιάζω
This related verb shows the family’s range from slaughter to ritual offering.
ἀνάστα
anasta
GROWS FROM
ἀνίστημι
anistēmi
to stand up, rise
“rise” in this verse is anasta. The command begins by moving Peter into action before it names what he must do. This verb family also names rising and resurrection, so the first word carries the sense of standing up into a changed position.
ALSO GROWS
anastasis: rising, resurrection
ἀνάστασις
The related noun names the rising that follows death, expanding “arise” beyond simply changing posture.
histēmi: to stand, set in place
ἵστημι
This verb is the base of anistēmi and makes the underlying image of standing visible.
THE PATTERN
Divine speech can unsettle boundaries around what may be received as food.
Every creeping thing that lives shall be food for you; as the green grass I have given you all.Because it does not enter his heart, but into his belly, and goes out into the drain, cleansing all foods?And the voice spoke to him again the second time, What God has cleansed, do not make common.THE THREAD
And he said to them, You know how unlawful it is for a man who is a Jew to cling to, or come near, one of another nation; but God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean.This verse shows where the command leads: Peter is not to call any person common or unclean. The food instruction is the visible sign of a boundary around people being opened.
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