What Does Acts 13:51 Mean?
But they shook off the dust of their feet against them, and came to Iconium.
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
But they shook off the dust of their feet against them, and came unto Iconium.THE KEY
The dust is left in the city that rejects them; its refusal does not travel with the message into Iconium.
THE MEANING
In the face of refusal, the encounter can be marked and left behind; its dust does not have to cling to the next step. The journey continues toward another place.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie undone is that rejection must end the journey or keep the rejected person rooted at the place of refusal.
THE ROOT
ἐκτινάσσω
ektinassō
GROWS FROM
τινάσσω
tinassō
To shake or swing; the Greek verb stem at the heart of “shake off.”
“shook off” in this verse is ektinassō. The verb here is ἐκτινάσσω (ektinassō, shake out or off): ek- (“out”) joins τινάσσω (tinassō, shake or swing). The action is more than departure; what clings as dust is deliberately shaken away before the travelers move on.
ALSO GROWS
tinassō: To shake or swing.
τινάσσω
The simple verb supplies the motion inside the compound used in this verse.
ektinassō: To shake out or off.
ἐκτινάσσω
The prefix ek- (“out”) gives the shaking an outward direction: the dust is left behind as the travelers continue.
THE PATTERN
A refused message is marked by an outward gesture, then its bearers leave without carrying the encounter into the next place.
Whoever will not take you in, nor hear and respond to your words, as you go out from that house or city, shake the dust out from your feet.And whoever will not receive you, when you go out from that city, shake out the very dust from your feet as a witness against them.And when they lined themselves up against him and reviled him, he shook out his cloak and said to them, Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean. From now on I will go to the nations.THE THREAD
Whoever will not take you in, nor hear and respond to your words, as you go out from that house or city, shake the dust out from your feet.Matthew uses the same Greek verb, ἐκτινάσσω (ektinassō, shake out or off), as Acts 13:51. There the instruction becomes an enacted gesture: the dust is shaken away, and the travelers continue to Iconium.
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