What Does Acts 17:7 Mean?
Whom Jason has taken in; and all these act against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.
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
Whom Jason hath received: and these all do contrary to the decrees of Cæsar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus.THE KEY
The accusation reveals that receiving people becomes politically charged when they name a different king.
THE MEANING
Jason receives people whose words name Jesus as another king. The verse places welcome beside a public claim about who rules, and shows how quickly that claim is treated as defiance.
THE ROOT
βασιλέα
basilea
GROWS FROM
βασιλ-
king, ruler
This consonantal family gathers the king, the act of reigning, and the realm under one root. Here, naming Jesus as king names a rival governance, not simply an alternate title.
ALSO GROWS
basileuō: to reign, rule as king
βασιλεύω
The king named in the verse is inseparable from the act of ruling.
basileia: kingship, kingdom, realm
βασιλεία
The same family links the person called king to the governance that his rule expresses.
ὑποδέδεκται
hypodedektai
GROWS FROM
δεχ-
receive, welcome
“taken in” in this verse is hypodedektai. The verb centers the scene on an act of receiving: Jason has welcomed these people. The accusation then makes that welcome part of the public conflict over whose rule they name.
ALSO GROWS
dechomai: receive, welcome
δέχομαι
This is the core receiving word within the verse’s verb family.
apodechomai: welcome, receive gladly
ἀποδέχομαι
Its shared root keeps welcome and reception connected to Jason’s act of receiving.
THE PATTERN
When rival rule is named, allegiance becomes a public contest over who governs.
And the LORD said to Samuel, Hear and respond to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not spurned you, but they have spurned me, that I should not reign over them.The kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers sit down together against the LORD and against his anointed one, saying,From then on Pilate sought to release him, but the Jews cried out, saying, If you let this man go, you are not Caesar's friend. Everyone who makes himself a king speaks against Caesar.THE THREAD
Pilate said to him, So you are a king, then? Jesus answered, You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is from the truth hears my voice.John uses the same Greek king-family, βασιλεύς (basileus, king), as Acts. Jesus connects that kingship to bearing witness to truth, opening the title beyond the accusation that it is only a rival political claim.
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