What Does Acts 15:21 Mean?
For Moses from ancient generations has in every city those who herald him, being read in the gatherings every sabbath day.
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
For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day.THE KEY
Moses’ voice travels through cities by proclamation and returns each Sabbath through public reading.
THE MEANING
Moses’ teaching reaches across cities through people who proclaim it and assemblies where it is read each Sabbath. The verse presents shared understanding as something formed through recurring public encounters with words. Its voice is present in the rhythms of community, not confined to one place.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The sacred text is confined to one center or available only to a few authorities. Here it is proclaimed across cities and read in gathered communities.
THE ROOT
ἀναγινωσκόμενος
anaginōskomenos
GROWS FROM
γνῶ-
γνῶ- (gnō-): the knowing and recognizing family.
The verb translated “being read,” ἀναγινώσκω (anaginōskō), belongs to the Greek family of knowing and recognizing. The language places reading beside knowing: the verse describes not only text being present, but its repeated encounter within a community.
ALSO GROWS
ginōskō: to know, perceive, recognize
γινώσκω
This is the knowing verb at the center of the family from which ἀναγινώσκω, “to read,” is formed.
anagnōsis: reading, public reading
ἀνάγνωσις
This related noun names the act of reading, bringing the verse’s recurring public reading into view as a shared encounter with the text.
epiginōskō: to recognize, acknowledge
ἐπιγινώσκω
It shares the knowing stem and highlights how reading and recognition belong to the same word family.
συναγωγαῖς
synagōgais
GROWS FROM
ἄγω
ἄγω (agō): to lead, bring.
“gatherings” in this verse is synagōgais. The word for “synagogues” belongs to the συναγωγή (synagōgē) family, built around bringing or gathering together. The verse places the reading of Moses within a gathered community, where the words are heard in common.
ALSO GROWS
synagō: to gather, bring together
συνάγω
This verb combines the gathering sense of σύν with ἄγω, the root present in “synagogues.”
synagōgē: assembly, gathering
συναγωγή
This is the singular noun behind the verse’s plural “synagogues”; its name carries the idea of people brought together.
agōgē: leading, bringing
ἀγωγή
This related noun preserves the root’s sense of leading or bringing, the action beneath the gathered place.
THE PATTERN
A community receives its shared teaching through words read aloud again and again.
When all Israel comes to see the face of the LORD your God in the place he will choose, you will call out this instruction before all Israel, in their ears.So they read aloud from the scroll of the instruction of God, spread open, and set the sense in place, and caused the people to perceive in the reading.And he came to Nazareth, where he had been nourished. As was his custom, he entered the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up to read.THE THREAD
For those who settle in Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they did not perceive him, nor the voices of the prophets, which are read aloud every sabbath, filled them up by judging him.Both verses use the same Greek verb for what is read every Sabbath. Beside the public access described here, Acts 13:27 exposes the gap between words being read and their voice being recognized.
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