What Does Acts 17:29 Mean?
Since then we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think the divine is like gold, or silver, or stone, carved by craft and by human imagining.
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
Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.THE KEY
If you are God’s offspring, the divine cannot be reduced to something human hands can manufacture.
THE MEANING
You are named as God’s offspring, and that relation is the reason the divine is not like a human-made object of gold, silver, or stone. A crafted image bears a human design; it cannot be the source or measure of the life named here. The contrast is between living origin and a likeness produced by human thought and art.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
God can be contained or defined by an image that people make.
THE ROOT
γένος
genos
GROWS FROM
γεν-
gen-
Beget, come into being; by extension, kind or lineage.
“offspring” in this verse is genos. γένος (genos) carries the sense of kind, stock, or lineage. The word grounds the contrast in living relation to God, set against a likeness produced by human craft.
ALSO GROWS
gennaō: Beget or give birth.
γεννάω
It makes the root’s connection to generation and living origin audible.
genesis: Birth or origin.
γένεσις
It echoes the idea of coming into being that stands behind being called God’s offspring.
χάραγμα
charagma
GROWS FROM
χαράσσ-
charass-
Cut, incise, or engrave.
“carved” in this verse is charagma. The word translated “graven” evokes something cut into a surface: a human-made mark. Beside γένος (genos), it sharpens the verse’s contrast between living lineage and a form shaped by human hands.
ALSO GROWS
charassō: Engrave, scratch, or inscribe.
χαράσσω
It shows the physical action behind the crafted likeness in the verse.
charaktēr: An engraved mark or imprint.
χαρακτήρ
It shares the engraving word-family and shows how an incised mark can become a figure or representation.
THE PATTERN
God’s living origin cannot be contained in a likeness produced by human hands.
And God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.Yet the Highest does not settle in what is made by hands, as the prophet says.THE THREAD
For in him we live and move and are; as some of your own makers have said, for we are also his offspring.“Offspring” repeats the same Greek word, γένος (genos), used in the preceding verse. There it stands alongside living, moving, and having our being in God; here, that living origin is the reason God cannot be equated with a carved object.
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