What Does Acts 13:20 Mean?

And after this he gave them judges for about four hundred and fifty years, until Samuel the prophet.

Acts 13:20 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

And after that he gave unto them judges about the space of four hundred and fifty years, until Samuel the prophet.

THE KEY

The judges are a provision for an interval: the word “until” makes their office a passage in the story, not its endpoint.

THE MEANING

In your own unfinished stretch, guidance can arrive as a provision with a boundary: it serves a season, and it does not have to be the whole story. Here, “until” holds the judges’ service inside an interval that leads toward Samuel.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that a form of guidance is permanent simply because it is the guidance available now; the verse marks the judges’ role with “until.”

THE ROOT

κριτάς

kritas

GROWS FROM

κρίνω

krinō

To distinguish, decide, or judge.

The Greek noun for “judges” belongs to the ⁨κρίνω⁩ family: to distinguish, decide, and render judgment. The root keeps the active work inside the title, discernment taking shape in decisions, entrusted for the interval marked by “until.”

ALSO GROWS

krinō: To distinguish, decide, or judge.

κρίνω

This verb is the seed behind “judges,” keeping the act of discernment visible within the role.

krisis: Judgment or decision.

κρίσις

This branch names the act or process of judging carried out by the judges.

krima: A decision or verdict.

κρίμα

This branch names the judgment that results, showing that the role involves rendering decisions.

THE PATTERN

Judging is entrusted to people for a defined scope of service.

And the LORD raised up judges, who delivered them out of the hand of those who stripped them.

Judges 2:16 · SDVJudges appear as people entrusted with a specific work: delivering others from those who oppress them.

And Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life.

1 Samuel 7:15 · SDVSamuel’s judging is described as a service with a clear span: all the days of his life.

Have you not seen that the set-apart ones will judge the world? And if the world is judged by you, are you too light for the smallest courts?

1 Corinthians 6:2 · SDVThe verse presents judging as a responsibility entrusted to people within a stated scope.

THE THREAD

For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son.

John 5:22 · SDV

Acts and John use words from the same ⁨κρίνω⁩ family: the judges receive the work of judgment for a defined season, and John says all judgment is committed to the Son. The shared root makes “he gave” part of a larger pattern of discernment entrusted to another.

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