What Does Acts 14:2 Mean?
But the Jews who would not be persuaded roused the nations and made their living souls evil against the brothers.
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 the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles, and made their minds evil affected against the brethren.THE KEY
The verse exposes hostility as a process: a people are stirred until their living souls turn against the brethren.
THE MEANING
This verse names a present pattern: a people’s living souls can be stirred and made bitter against those called brothers. The harm reaches inward, shaping how one community regards another, and outward, as hostility turns toward the brethren.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that collective hostility is always a clear, self-generated judgment: here it is stirred and made bitter.
THE ROOT
ἐπήγειραν
epēgeiran
GROWS FROM
ἐγείρω
egeirō
To raise, rouse, or awaken.
“roused” in this verse is epēgeiran. The verb is a form of ἐπεγείρω (epegeirō, rouse or stir up), built on the word for raising. Here, what is raised is opposition: the hostility is depicted as something stirred into motion.
ALSO GROWS
egeirō: Raise, awaken.
ἐγείρω
The same word family names a rousing or raising; here the people are aroused toward hostility.
egersis: Raising, resurrection.
ἔγερσις
This noun shares the raising word family and shows its range; in this verse, the raising is directed toward opposition.
ἐκάκωσαν
ekakōsan
GROWS FROM
κακ-
kak-
Bad or harmful; to cause harm or affliction.
“evil affected” in this verse is ekakōsan. The verb κακόω (kakoō, harm or afflict) describes active injury, not merely an idea being labeled evil. Its object is ψυχάς (psychas, living souls), so the harm reaches the inner life as it is turned against the brethren.
ALSO GROWS
kakos: Bad, harmful.
κακός
This adjective shares the kak- family and carries the sense of harm present in the verse’s verb.
kakia: Malice, wickedness.
κακία
This related noun shows how harmfulness can take shape as malice, illuminating the bitterness directed against the brethren.
ἀπειθοῦντες
apeithountes
GROWS FROM
πειθ-
peith-
Persuade or win over; be persuaded, trust.
“who would not be persuaded” in this verse is apeithountes. The participle comes from ἀπειθέω (apeitheō, refuse persuasion or disobey), formed with a negative prefix from πείθω (peithō, persuade or win over). “Unbelieving” therefore carries resistance to persuasion in its word family, before the verse describes the agitation and harm that follow.
ALSO GROWS
peithō: Persuade, win over; persuade oneself, trust.
πείθω
This is the positive word family beneath “unbelieving”; the verse describes people marked by resistance to being persuaded.
apeitheia: Disobedience, resistance to persuasion.
ἀπείθεια
This related noun makes explicit the resistance carried by the participle used here.
THE PATTERN
Words can kindle conflict and separate people who were close.
A man of twistings sends out strife, and a whisperer splits apart the closest friends.Even so the tongue is a small limb, and it lifts its neck over great things. Look how great a forest a little fire kindles!THE THREAD
We know that we have crossed over out of death and into life, because we love the brothers. The one who does not love his brother remains in death.Acts names the target of the stirred hostility as ἀδελφοί (adelphoi, brothers); 1 John uses the same ἀδελφ- (adelph-) word family for the brothers who are loved. One verse shows kinship made a target; the other shows love of the brethren as the sign of passage from death to life.
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