What Does Acts 16:40 Mean?
And they went out of the prison and went into the house of Lydia, and when they had seen the brothers, they comforted them and went out.
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 they went out of the prison, and entered into the house of Lydia: and when they had seen the brethren, they comforted them, and departed.THE KEY
The prison door opens outward, but freedom moves back toward the people who need comfort.
THE MEANING
You move from confinement toward a house where people are gathered, and meet them with comfort before leaving again. Release reaches beyond your own exit: steadiness can pass into the lives around you. The verse holds freedom and care in one movement.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Release is complete once I am out of my own confinement.
THE ROOT
παρεκάλεσαν
parekalesan
GROWS FROM
παρακαλέω
parakaleō
To comfort, encourage, console, urge, or appeal.
“comforted” in this verse is parekalesan. This word family holds comfort and urging together: care can console and strengthen at once. After leaving prison, they return to Lydia’s house and bring that care to the gathered brethren.
ALSO GROWS
paraklēsis: Comfort, consolation, or appeal.
παράκλησις
This related form shows how comfort can be both consolation received and encouragement offered.
paraklētos: Advocate, helper, or comforter.
παράκλητος
This related form extends the same family of support and comfort to one who strengthens another.
THE PATTERN
Those who encounter another’s distress meet it with presence and comfort that can be passed on.
Now when Job's three friends heard of all this harm that had come upon him, they came each from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite; for they had made an appointment together to come to shake their heads with him and to comfort him.Who comforts us in all our pressure, so that we are able to comfort those in every pressure, through the same comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.Therefore, comfort one another and build one another up, just as you are already doing.THE THREAD
Who comforts us in all our pressure, so that we are able to comfort those in every pressure, through the same comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.The same Greek word family for comfort appears here as comfort received and then given to another. Acts 16:40 shows that movement in a house: those who have just left confinement turn toward the brethren with comfort.
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