What Does Acts 2:35 Mean?
Until I set your enemies under your feet.
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
Until I make thy foes thy footstool.THE KEY
The verse pictures the enthroned one’s authority through the placing of his enemies beneath his feet.
THE MEANING
The enthroned one holds authority while opposition remains active; the verse places the foes beneath his feet as the end toward which the conflict moves. Its image keeps hostility visible while showing it beneath his rule.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Visible opposition means the enthroned one is not truly reigning.
THE ROOT
θῶ
thō from tithēmi
GROWS FROM
τίθημι
To put, set, or place.
English “make” can suggest manufacture; here θῶ (thō) comes from τίθημι (tithēmi, “put, set, place”), and the Psalm’s Hebrew uses שִׁית (shith, “set, place”). The verse’s mechanism is placement: opposition is assigned a position beneath the ruler.
ALSO GROWS
tithēmi: To put, set, or place.
τίθημι
This is the verb behind θῶ in the verse, making the action one of setting the foes in a position.
apotithēmi: To put off or lay aside.
ἀποτίθημι
The same placing root takes a direction away, showing how its prefixes shape the action.
epitithēmi: To lay on or impose.
ἐπιτίθημι
This branch adds the direction “upon,” while keeping the root’s concrete sense of placing.
ἐχθρούς
echthrous from echthros
GROWS FROM
ἐχθρ-
Hostility or enmity.
The Greek word for “foes” belongs to the same word family as ἔχθρα (echthra, “enmity”). The image therefore presents hostile opposition as something brought beneath the ruler’s feet, rather than something that occupies the seat of rule.
ALSO GROWS
echthra: Enmity or hostility.
ἔχθρα
This names the state of hostility shared with the word for “foes.”
echthros: An enemy or hostile one.
ἐχθρός
This is the singular form of the word translated “foes,” tying the people who oppose to the condition of enmity.
ποδῶν
podōn from pous
GROWS FROM
πούς / ποδ-
Foot.
“under your feet” in this verse is podōn from pous. The Greek word for “footstool,” ὑποπόδιον (hypopodion, “under-foot”), contains the same ποδ- (pod-) root as “feet.” The compound and the repeated word make the vertical relation explicit: the foes are positioned below the ruler’s feet.
ALSO GROWS
hypopodion: Footstool; something under the foot.
ὑποπόδιον
The word combines “under” with the same foot-root used in “feet,” giving the image its precise direction.
podērēs: A garment reaching to the feet.
ποδήρης
This related form appears in Revelation 1:13; it preserves the same bodily measure of the feet.
THE PATTERN
Scripture pictures rule over enemies through their placement beneath a ruler’s feet.
A Psalm of David. The LORD says to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I set your enemies as a footstool for your feet.And it came to pass, when they brought out those kings to Joshua, that Joshua called for all the men of Israel, and said to the commanders of the men of war who went with him, Draw near, and set your feet upon the necks of these kings. And they drew near, and set their feet upon the necks of them.For he must govern until he sets all his enemies under his feet.THE THREAD
For what remains, waiting until his enemies are set as a footstool beneath his feet.Hebrews 10:13 uses the same Greek root τίθημι (tithēmi, “set, place”) and repeats the enemies-and-footstool wording. It holds the ruler’s reign and remaining opposition together within the same “until” image.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us