What Does Acts 17:10 Mean?
And the brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas out through the night to Berea; who, coming there, went into the synagogue of the Jews.
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 the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews.THE KEY
The verse moves from a sending outward to a word that means gathering together, so departure and belonging sit inside the same motion.
THE MEANING
You can be sent outward and still move toward a place of gathering. Night surrounds the journey, yet the next named movement is into an assembly.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that being sent away means being left without a people: the verse pairs departure with entry into another gathering.
THE ROOT
ἐξέπεμψαν
exepempsan
GROWS FROM
πεμπ-
pemp-
Send or dispatch; the prefix meaning “out” gives the action an outward direction.
“sent out” in this verse is exepempsan. The verb names an active sending outward, and the sentence keeps that movement going by naming where Paul and Silas go next. The sending does not end at separation; it carries into a new place.
ALSO GROWS
pempō: Send, dispatch.
πέμπω
This is the basic send-root beneath the verse’s more specific act of sending out.
ekpempō: Send out, dispatch outward.
ἐκπέμπω
This compound adds an outward direction to the act of sending.
ekpemphthentes: Having been sent forth.
ἐκπεμφθέντες
This form of the same send-out verb appears in Acts 13:4, where a departure carries people into their next work.
συναγωγήν
synagōgēn
GROWS FROM
ἀγ- (ag-), from ἄγω (agō)
Bring or lead; joined with the sense of “together,” it forms the idea of bringing people together.
The word for synagogue carries the sense of a gathering together. Beside the send-out verb, it makes the verse’s movement run from being sent outward to entering a place of assembly.
ALSO GROWS
agō: Bring, lead.
ἄγω
This is the verb-stem carrying the idea of bringing people toward a place or purpose.
agōgē: A leading, bringing, or way of life.
ἀγωγή
This form shows how the bring-or-lead root extends into a course or means of leading.
synagōgē: Gathering, assembly, synagogue.
συναγωγή
With the sense of “together,” the root describes the destination as a place where people are gathered.
THE PATTERN
A sending into uncertainty carries purpose forward into a new place or work.
And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said, Here I am; send me.Then Jesus said to them again, Wholeness be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.So they, sent out by the Set-Apart Breath, went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus.THE THREAD
So they, sent out by the Set-Apart Breath, went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus.Acts 13:4 uses the same Greek send-out verb, ἐκπέμπω (ekpempō, “send out”), as Acts 17:10. In both verses, being sent outward opens into the next place and movement.
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