What Does Acts 13:3 Mean?
And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they let them go.
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 when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.THE KEY
The sending is a release: prayerful touch marks a calling that moves beyond the gathered community.
THE MEANING
A calling can be recognized within a community without being confined to it. Prayer, fasting, and hands laid upon those being sent accompany their release into the work; the departure carries communal recognition with it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that release means abandonment: those being sent are surrounded first by fasting, prayer, and the touch of the community.
THE ROOT
ἀπέλυσαν
apelysan
GROWS FROM
λύω
lyō
To loosen, release, or unbind.
“let them go” in this verse is apelysan. The Greek verb carries the image of release within the act of sending. Here that release follows fasting, prayer, and hands laid upon them, so departure carries the community’s recognition with it as they move into their work.
ALSO GROWS
apolysis: Release, dismissal.
ἀπόλυσις
This noun preserves the root’s sense of release and makes the movement in “sent them away” more than a change of location.
katalyo: Take down, dismantle, dissolve.
καταλύω
This compound shares the root’s image of loosening; the same root can describe release or the taking apart of what is set in place.
THE PATTERN
A calling moves into action when a person is released to go.
And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said, Here I am; send me.Then Jesus said to them again, Wholeness be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.THE THREAD
So when they were let go, they went down to Antioch, and when they had gathered the crowd together, they handed over the letter.Acts 15:30 uses the same Greek verb, ἀπολύω (apoluo), meaning release or dismiss. In both verses, people leave a gathered community carrying work entrusted to them.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us