What Does Acts 19:41 Mean?
And when he had spoken thus, he let the assembly go.
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 when he had thus spoken, he dismissed the assembly.THE KEY
A gathering’s ending is also a release: what comes together can be let go.
THE MEANING
The closing of a gathering can be its completion: those who come together are released to move onward. What ends does not need to be held together to remain meaningful.
THE ROOT
ἀπέλυσεν
apelysen
GROWS FROM
λύω
luō
To loosen, unbind, or release; the verb here means to release or dismiss.
The word rendered “dismissed” carries release within it: the assembly is let go from its gathered form. English can make the ending sound administrative, while the root also holds loosening and release.
ALSO GROWS
lýsis: Release, loosening
λύσις
This branch makes visible the letting go contained in the assembly’s dismissal.
apólysis: Release, dismissal
ἀπόλυσις
This related noun names the same movement of releasing what has been held together.
THE PATTERN
A gathering can end through release, sending its people onward from what brought them together.
On the eighth day he sent the people away, and they blessed the king, and went to their tents, joyful and glad of heart for all the goodness that the LORD had done for David his servant, and for Israel his people.And when he had sent the crowds away, he went climbing up into the mountain privately to pray; and when evening came, he was there alone.And when they had been let go, they went to their own and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them.THE THREAD
And when they had been let go, they went to their own and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them.The same Greek verb rendered “let go” here is rendered “dismissed” in Acts 19:41. In both verses, release opens movement onward: one group goes to its own company, while the assembly itself is let go.
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