What Does Acts 14:13 Mean?
Then the priest of Zeus, who was before their city, brought bulls and wreaths to the gates, and wished to offer slaughter with the crowds.
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
Then the priest of Jupiter, which was before their city, brought oxen and garlands unto the gates, and would have done sacrifice with the people.THE KEY
The garlands and oxen show awe turning into a public crowning of the human messengers as gods.
THE MEANING
You meet the moment when awe takes a dangerous shape: the priest brings oxen and garlands to the gates, and the crowd is ready to sacrifice to the people before them. An extraordinary act is being read as proof that its visible agents are gods. The verse shows how quickly wonder can become a public ritual.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that a person who carries extraordinary power must be divine.
THE ROOT
στέμματα
stemmata
GROWS FROM
στέφω
stephō
To encircle or crown; to make a wreath.
The Greek word for garlands belongs to the word family of wreaths and crowns, so these are more than decoration: they visibly honor the sacrifice. The procession makes the crowd’s mistaken elevation of the messengers into gods public.
ALSO GROWS
stemma: Wreath or garland.
στέμμα
This is the singular form of the word used for the garlands brought to the gates.
stephanos: Wreath or crown.
στέφανος
The related crown word brings out the honor being placed on the people the crowd mistakes for gods.
θύειν
thyein
GROWS FROM
θύω
thyō
To sacrifice or offer in sacrifice.
“offer slaughter” in this verse is thyein. The Greek is a concrete verb, “to sacrifice,” following the oxen and garlands brought to the gates. Its word family also names offerings of praise, joining the slaughtered animal here to an offering made with words elsewhere.
ALSO GROWS
thysia: Sacrifice or offering.
θυσία
This related noun appears in Hebrews’ “sacrifice of praise,” linking animal offerings with praise offered to God.
thysiastērion: Altar, the place of sacrifice.
θυσιαστήριον
The altar shares the same sacrificial word family and makes clear that this verb describes a concrete ritual act.
THE PATTERN
When a human messenger is mistaken for the source of power, honor gathers around the messenger instead of God.
Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but clothe your nature in weight, for your faithful love and for the sake of your truth.And as Peter was coming in, Cornelius met him, fell at his feet, and bowed down before him. But Peter raised him up, saying, Stand up; I myself also am a man.And I fall at his feet to bow down before him. And he says to me, Look, do not do this. I am your fellow servant, and of your brothers who hold the witness of Jesus. Bow down before God, for the witness of Jesus is the breath of prophecy.THE THREAD
Through him, then, let us always carry up a sacrifice of praise to God, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name.The noun θυσία (thysia, “sacrifice”) in Hebrews belongs to the same word family as θύω (thyō, “to offer in sacrifice”) here. The shared root holds together the slaughtered offering in Acts and the offering of praise made with the lips.
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