What Does Acts 13:14 Mean?
But they passed on from Perga and came to Antioch in Pisidia, and on the sabbath day they entered the synagogue and sat down.
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
But when they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and sat down.THE KEY
The word for “synagogue” carries the sense of bringing people together, so this is an arrival into shared space, not merely a stop on the road.
THE MEANING
You arrive in new places, and a gathered room can make your arrival part of something shared. Here, you enter among others and sit before the word is spoken: presence comes before understanding.
THE ROOT
συναγωγή
synagōgē
GROWS FROM
ἄγω
ἄγω (agō) means “lead” or “bring.”
The word συναγωγή (synagōgē) joins σύν (syn, “together”) to this root: a synagogue is a bringing together. English names the place, while the Greek also holds the action of people being brought into one gathering.
ALSO GROWS
agō: lead, bring
ἄγω
This is the root verb within συναγωγή, revealing the movement contained in the name of the gathering place.
synagō: gather, bring together
συνάγω
The verb combines the same root with σύν (syn, “together”), making explicit the shared movement that συναγωγή names.
episynagōgē: gathering together, assembly
ἐπισυναγωγή
This related word in Hebrews 10:25 carries the same gathering root, connecting this seated assembly with the recurring act of coming together.
THE PATTERN
A people become a listening assembly by gathering in a shared place and taking their place there.
And all the people gathered as one man into the broad place before the waters gate, and they said to Ezra the writer to bring the scroll of the instruction of Moses, which the LORD had commanded Israel.And he came to Nazareth, where he had been nourished. As was his custom, he entered the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up to read.Not leaving behind the gathering of ourselves, as is the habit of some, but urging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.THE THREAD
Not leaving behind the gathering of ourselves, as is the habit of some, but urging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.“Assembling” comes from ἐπισυναγωγή (episynagōgē), which shares the gathering root in συναγωγή (synagōgē). The same word-family links the people sitting in the synagogue with the continuing act of gathering together.
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