What Does Acts 2:11 Mean?
Cretes and Arabians, we hear them speak in our tongues the great works of God.
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
Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.THE KEY
God’s greatness crosses every language without flattening a single tongue.
THE MEANING
God’s great deeds are heard in the language native to each listener. The verse speaks now wherever difference remains: understanding can pass between peoples while their voices keep their distinct languages.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that a person must adopt someone else’s sacred language before recognizing what God is doing.
THE ROOT
γλώσσαις
glōssais
GROWS FROM
γλωσσ-
glōss-
Tongue; by extension, the language spoken by the tongue.
Here γλῶσσα (glōssa, tongue or language) names both the speaking organ and the language it carries: the message reaches listeners through particular voices. The plural matters, shared recognition arrives through many tongues, with their differences intact.
ALSO GROWS
glōssa: Tongue; language.
γλῶσσα
The same word names the body part that speaks and the language listeners understand, joining embodied voice to shared meaning.
heteroglōssos: Of another tongue; foreign-tongued.
ἑτερόγλωσσος
This compound preserves the same tongue-root while naming difference between languages, fitting a message heard across distinct speech.
μεγαλεῖα
megaleia
GROWS FROM
μεγ- (from μέγας, megas)
Great; large; exceeding ordinary measure.
The word presents God’s deeds as great things, and its word-family includes μεγαλύνω (megalynō, magnify or make great). Speech does not add greatness to God; it makes that greatness heard.
ALSO GROWS
megalynō: To magnify; make great.
μεγαλύνω
Acts 10:46 uses this related word for magnifying God, linking the great deeds heard here with speech that declares God’s greatness.
megaleiotēs: Majesty; magnificence.
μεγαλειότης
This related word names the quality of greatness carried by the “wonderful works” proclaimed in the verse.
THE PATTERN
God’s greatness becomes known among many peoples through voices that retain their distinct languages.
Recount his weight among the nations; his wonders among all peoples.Praise the LORD, all you nations; shout for him, all you peoples.After this I see, and look, a great crowd that no one can number, from every nation and tribe and people and tongue, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, wrapped in white robes, with palm branches in their hands.THE THREAD
For they heard them speaking in tongues and magnifying God. Then Peter answered,The “magnify” here is μεγαλύνω (megalynō, make great), from the same word-family as μεγαλεῖα (megaleia, great deeds) in Acts 2:11. The root connects hearing God’s great works with voices that make that greatness known.
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