What Does Acts 16:13 Mean?
And on the Sabbath we went out past the gate, beside a river, where prayer was customary. We sat down and spoke to the women who had come together there.
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 on the sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made; and we sat down, and spake unto the women which resorted thither.THE KEY
The same Greek verb-family describes both leaving the city and the women coming together, so the journey outward leads into shared prayer.
THE MEANING
Prayer is already being practiced at the edge of your familiar world, where people meet beside the river. Here, movement away from the city leads into sitting, speaking, and shared attention. The gathering itself becomes a place of encounter.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that prayer only belongs inside a dedicated religious building dissolves here: prayer is already gathering beside the river.
THE ROOT
ἐξήλθομεν
exēlthomen
GROWS FROM
ἔρχομαι
erchomai
To come or go; the compounds specify movement out or movement together.
“went out / resorted” in this verse is exēlthomen. English makes this a departure followed by a separate arrival. Greek repeats the same movement root: the disciples go out, and the women come together. The language binds the outward step to the gathering it reaches.
ALSO GROWS
exerchomai: Go out, come out.
ἐξέρχομαι
The disciples’ “went out” is this compound of the root, with ἐξ- (ex-, “out”) specifying the direction.
synerchomai: Come together, assemble.
συνέρχομαι
The women who “resorted” are described with this compound, with συν- (syn-, “together”) naming their gathering.
προσευχή
proseuchē
GROWS FROM
εὔχομαι
euchomai
To pray, vow, or wish; προσευχή (proseuchē) is prayer, directed address.
Prayer is not merely a private thought in this scene: it is already the reason people gather at this place. The Greek word carries the shape of directed address, giving the riverside gathering an orientation as well as a location.
ALSO GROWS
euchomai: Pray, vow, or wish.
εὔχομαι
This is the verb at the base of the prayer word-family.
proseuchomai: Pray, address in prayer.
προσεύχομαι
This verb names the act that gives προσευχή (proseuchē, “prayer”) its familiar sense.
THE PATTERN
A shared gathering becomes a place of encounter when people turn toward God together.
A Song of degrees of David. I rejoice when they say to me, Let us go into the house of the LORD.For where two or three are gathered together in my nature, there I am in the midst of them.And they held fast in the teaching of the sent ones, and in sharing in common, and in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.THE THREAD
And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira, who stood in awe of God, listened to us. The Lord opened her heart wide, and she held fast to the things Paul spoke.The women’s gathered listening continues in Lydia, who hears the speech and whose heart is opened. The riverside meeting becomes the setting where one listener’s response emerges.
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