What Does Acts 16:20 Mean?
And they led them before the commanders, saying, These men, being Jews, stir our city exceedingly.
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 brought them to the magistrates, saying, These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city,THE KEY
The verb pictures the city as thrown into agitation, showing how the accusation frames these men as a threat to civic order.
THE MEANING
The accusation casts the city’s shared life as thrown into turmoil by these men. You can hear how a public claim turns a group’s presence into a civic crisis, while the sentence leaves the truth of the claim with the speakers.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A public accusation of civic disorder is not the same as an established fact; this verse presents the charge as the speakers’ claim.
THE ROOT
ἐκταράσσουσιν
ektarassousin
GROWS FROM
ταράσσω
tarassō
To stir, agitate, or throw into confusion; the base verb of the intensified form in this verse.
“stir exceedingly” in this verse is ektarassousin. The verb carries an image of agitation: the charge says the men are throwing the city into commotion. Its word-family also names disturbance and inward unsettlement, linking public uproar with the turmoil a person can feel within.
ALSO GROWS
tarassō: To agitate, stir, or trouble.
ταράσσω
This base verb shows the force beneath the accusation: the city is portrayed as being stirred into unrest.
tarachē: Disturbance, commotion.
ταραχή
This related noun names the state of agitation itself, making the verse’s “trouble” more concrete than a vague complaint.
THE PATTERN
The language of disturbance can describe upheaval in a city’s public life and unrest in a person’s inner life.
And they led them before the commanders, saying, These men, being Jews, stir our city exceedingly.And it came to pass in the morning that his breath was struck. He sent and called for all the magicians of Egypt and all its wise men, and Pharaoh told them his dream. But there was none who could loose them for Pharaoh.Wholeness I leave with you; my wholeness I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be stirred, and do not let it shrink.THE THREAD
Wholeness I leave with you; my wholeness I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be stirred, and do not let it shrink.Acts 16:20 and John 14:27 use forms of ταράσσω (tarassō, to agitate or trouble). In Acts, the agitation is alleged in a city; in John, it is located in the heart, revealing how the same root reaches across public upheaval and inward unrest.
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