What Does Acts 13:42 Mean?
And as they went out of the synagogue, the Gentiles urged that these words be spoken to them the next sabbath.
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 the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next sabbath.THE KEY
The words cross a boundary and awaken a second hunger: the Gentiles’ first hearing leaves them asking for another.
THE MEANING
The words reach beyond the people already centered in the synagogue, and the hearers respond by asking to hear them again. Their first encounter is not a closed moment; it opens into expectation for the next sabbath.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that one hearing exhausts the words or that they belong only to a closed circle: those beyond that circle ask to hear them again.
THE ROOT
παρεκάλουν
parekaloun
GROWS FROM
καλέω
kaleō
The verbal base means “call” or “summon”; with παρά, it forms παρακαλέω, meaning “urge” or “appeal.”
The verb rendered “besought” is παρεκάλουν (parekaloun), from παρακαλέω (parakaleō), “urge, appeal”; its verbal base καλέω (kaleō) means “call, summon.” The related noun παράκλησις (paraklēsis), “appeal, exhortation, comfort,” appears nearby in “word of exhortation” (Acts 13:15): the hearers’ request echoes the kind of strengthening speech named earlier in the chapter.
ALSO GROWS
kaleō: Call; summon.
καλέω
The request is an active call for the words to be spoken again.
paraklēsis: Appeal; exhortation; comfort.
παράκλησις
This related noun names exhorting speech, linking the request here with the “word of exhortation” in Acts 13:15.
THE PATTERN
A word received awakens desire for a fuller hearing.
I open my mouth and pant, for I long for your commands.At that very hour I sent to you; and you have done well in coming alongside. Now, then, we are all here before God, to hear all that has been commanded you by the Lord.As newborn infants, long for the unmixed milk of the word, so that by it you may grow into deliverance.THE THREAD
And after the reading of the instruction and the prophets, the heads of the synagogue sent to them, saying, Men and brothers, if you have any word of urging for the people, speak.“Word of exhortation” here is παράκλησις (paraklēsis), “appeal” or “exhortation,” from the same word family as παρακαλέω (parakaleō), “urge, appeal,” rendered “besought” in Acts 13:42. The Gentiles’ request to hear the words again echoes the chapter’s earlier invitation for exhorting speech.
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