What Does Acts 13:35 Mean?
Therefore he also says in another psalm, "You will not give your faithful one to see decay."
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
Wherefore he saith also in another psalm, Thou shalt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.THE KEY
The Greek verb behind “suffer” means “give”: the Holy One is not handed over to decay.
THE MEANING
The verse declares that God’s Holy One is not given over to decay; God’s keeping reaches even through death. It speaks now wherever death seems to have the final claim: decay does not exhaust the life God holds.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that death’s decay has the final claim over the Holy One.
THE ROOT
δώσεις
dōseis
GROWS FROM
δίδωμι
To give, grant, or yield.
The Greek verb translated “suffer” is a form of “give.” The verse pictures God not giving the Holy One over to decay.
ALSO GROWS
paradidōmi: Hand over, deliver.
παραδίδωμι
This compound uses the same giving root; the verse denies that the Holy One is handed over to decay.
apodidōmi: Give back, render, repay.
ἀποδίδωμι
It keeps the line anchored in giving: what is denied is God’s yielding the Holy One to decay.
διαφθοράν
diaphthoran
GROWS FROM
φθορ-
Decay, ruin, destruction.
This word belongs to a family describing decay, wasting away, and ruin. “Corruption” can sound like only moral wrongdoing, but here the root also names the concrete decay the Holy One does not undergo.
ALSO GROWS
phthora: Decay, ruin.
φθορά
This noun names the decay at the heart of the verse’s claim.
phthartos: Perishable.
φθαρτός
The same consonantal family describes what is subject to decay, sharpening what the Holy One is not given over to.
diaphtheirō: Destroy, corrupt.
διαφθείρω
This verb carries the same consonants in the family of ruin and destruction.
ὅσιον
hosion
GROWS FROM
ὁσι-
Sacred, devout, set apart.
“faithful one” in this verse is hosion. The title marks the Holy One as belonging to the sacred. In this verse, that identity stands directly beside the promise that he is not given over to decay.
ALSO GROWS
hosiotēs: Holiness, sacred character.
ὁσιότης
It names the quality carried by the title “Holy One.”
hosiōs: Devoutly, in a sacred manner.
ὁσίως
It shows the same root describing what belongs to the sacred.
THE PATTERN
God’s keeping carries the Holy One beyond decay, so death does not define the life God holds.
For you do not leave my living soul to Sheol; you do not give your faithful one to see the pit.Knowing that the Anointed One, having been raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer masters him.But when this decaying thing has clothed itself in what does not decay, and this dying thing in what does not die, then the written word will come to pass, Death has been swallowed into victory.THE THREAD
For you do not leave my living soul to Sheol; you do not give your faithful one to see the pit.Psalm 16:10 places “not leave my soul in hell” beside “not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” The parallel joins God’s refusal to abandon with God’s refusal to yield the Holy One to decay.
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