What Does Acts 13:4 Mean?
So they, sent out by the Set-Apart Breath, went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus.
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
So they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, departed unto Seleucia; and from thence they sailed to Cyprus.THE KEY
The force that sends them outward is the Breath itself: life-giving presence becomes movement.
THE MEANING
The Set-Apart Breath sends people outward, and its sending takes shape in a real route from Seleucia across the sea to Cyprus. The movement is concrete: departure, sailing, arrival.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It loosens the belief that every meaningful move must originate in your own will: the sending begins in the Breath, while the travelers carry it into action.
THE ROOT
ἁγίου πνεύματος
hagiou pneumatos
GROWS FROM
πνευ-
pneu-
Breathe, blow; breath or a moving current of air.
“Set-Apart Breath” in this verse is hagiou pneumatos. The Greek πνεῦμα (pneuma) grows from πνέω (pneō), to breathe or blow, holding breath, wind, and animating spirit together. The source of this mission is living breath in motion, carrying people outward.
ALSO GROWS
pneō: To breathe or blow.
πνέω
This verb lets the verse’s sending carry the force of breath moving through the world.
pnoē: Breath or a blowing wind.
πνοή
It echoes the same moving air that animates life and, here, directs a journey.
ἐκπεμφθέντες
ekpemphthentes
GROWS FROM
πεμπ-
pemp-
Send, dispatch.
The verb is passive: they are sent out, rather than initiating the mission at its point of departure. Its prefix ἐκ (ek), “out,” gives the sending an outward direction that becomes visible in their route and voyage.
ALSO GROWS
pempō: To send or dispatch.
πέμπω
It names the sending that sets their movement in motion.
ekpempō: To send out or dispatch away.
ἐκπέμπω
This compound gives the sending an outward direction, which the voyage to Cyprus makes concrete.
THE PATTERN
The Breath that gives or fills life becomes visible through movement and action.
You send out your breath, and they are created; you renew the face of the ground.But the breath of the LORD clothed Gideon, and he blew the ram's horn, and Abiezer was gathered behind him.And Jesus, full of the Set-Apart Breath, returned from Jordan and was led by the breath into the wilderness.THE THREAD
But you will take hold of power when the Set-Apart Breath comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and to the farthest edge of the ground.Acts 1:8 names the same πνεῦμα (pneuma, breath) as the source of witness, then traces its movement from Jerusalem toward the earth’s edge. The voyage to Cyprus is one visible stretch of that breath-driven movement.
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