What Does Acts 19:26 Mean?
Moreover you watch and hear that not only at Ephesus, but almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and moved away a great crowd, saying that the hand-made are not gods.
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
Moreover ye see and hear, that not alone at Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul hath persuaded and turned away much people, saying that they be no gods, which are made with hands:THE KEY
The accusation turns on a source: people are calling gods what comes into being through human hands.
THE MEANING
You see persuasion moving through people: they are being turned from gods that come into being through human hands. The verse exposes a fault line between the maker and the thing made, even when the thing is given a divine name.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that something made through human hands is itself a god.
THE ROOT
οἱ διὰ χειρῶν γινόμενοι
hoi dia cheirōn
GROWS FROM
γίνομαι
ginomai
Come to be, become, happen
“made with hands” in this verse is hoi dia cheirōn. The Greek describes these gods as things that come into being through hands, keeping their origin visible. What is called divine still bears the trace of its makers.
ALSO GROWS
genesis: Birth, origin, coming into being
γένεσις
It shares the root’s focus on how something begins; the verse points back to the human hands through which these objects come to be.
genos: Kind, lineage, offspring
γένος
It connects what something is with where it comes from, sharpening the verse’s contrast between a made object and the source it depends on.
πείσας
peisas
GROWS FROM
πείθω
peithō
Persuade, convince; in the middle voice, be persuaded or trust
“persuaded” in this verse is peisas. Persuasion changes what people trust and treat as credible, not just what they have heard. Here it carries people toward a changed allegiance.
ALSO GROWS
pepoithēsis: Confidence, trust
πεποίθησις
It shows persuasion reaching inward: a claim can become something people rely on.
peitharcheō: Obey authority
πειθαρχέω
It shows how being persuaded can extend into following a claim’s authority.
μετέστησεν
metestēsen
GROWS FROM
ἵστημι
histēmi
Stand, set, place; with μετα-, shift or transfer to another position
“moved away” in this verse is metestēsen. The verb pictures a change of position: people are transferred from one standing to another. Joined to “persuaded,” it shows conviction as a movement that changes what holds a person’s allegiance.
ALSO GROWS
anistēmi: Rise, stand up
ἀνίστημι
It carries the same standing root, showing how a prefix can redirect the movement.
kathistēmi: Set, place, appoint
καθίστημι
It shares the root’s sense of placing or setting, echoing the repositioning in “turned away.”
THE PATTERN
A thing made by human hands cannot become the source it depends on.
Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.Who has shaped a god, or poured out a hewn image that profits nothing?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.THE THREAD
All things came to be through him, and apart from him not one thing came to be that has come to be.John uses the same Greek root, γίνομαι, for all things coming into being through him; Acts uses it for things coming into being through hands. The shared root brings the contrast into focus: what is made by hands is not the source through which all things come to be.
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