What Does Acts 20:26 Mean?
Therefore I call you as witnesses this day, that I am clean from the blood of all humankind.
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
Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men.THE KEY
Here “pure” is clean of blood-guilt: the next verse ties that cleanness to withholding none of what was entrusted to speak.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks to accountability: a person stands clear of the blood of others when they have not withheld the message entrusted to them. The next verse makes the measure concrete, the full counsel is spoken, while the messenger does not own every hearer’s response.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that you must control another person’s response to be clear of their blood; the speaker’s accountability lies in whether the entrusted message was withheld.
THE ROOT
καθαρός
katharos
GROWS FROM
καθαρ-
kathar-
Clean, pure, free from defilement.
The Greek word καθαρός (katharos, “clean; pure”) makes this a claim of being clear of blood-guilt. The following verse connects that cleanness to speaking the whole counsel entrusted to the speaker.
ALSO GROWS
katharizō: To make clean or purify.
καθαρίζω
Its shared stem shows cleanness as the state that follows cleansing; here the speaker claims to stand clear of blood-guilt.
katharsis: Cleansing or purification.
κάθαρσις
This branch keeps the image of cleanness active: the verse concerns what leaves a person clear of another’s blood.
μαρτύρομαι
marturomai
GROWS FROM
μαρτυρ-
martyr-
To bear witness or testify.
“call you as witnesses” in this verse is marturomai. The phrase translated “take you to record” uses a witness-family verb: the speaker is testifying before others. Its shared root with “witness” and “testimony” makes the declaration itself an accountable act.
ALSO GROWS
martys: A witness who bears testimony.
μάρτυς
The speaker’s claim is made as testimony, not as a private judgment.
martyria: Witness or testimony.
μαρτυρία
The word family links the declaration to a public account of what was spoken.
THE PATTERN
Blood-guilt marks responsibility for a withheld warning or testimony, while spoken warning leaves the hearer’s response in its own place.
When I say to the wicked, You shall surely die; and you do not warn him, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to keep his living soul alive; that same wicked man shall die in his crookedness; but his blood I will seek from your hand.And when they lined themselves up against him and reviled him, he shook out his cloak and said to them, Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean. From now on I will go to the nations.THE THREAD
For I have not drawn back from declaring to you the whole purpose of God.This verse names why the speaker can claim to be clear of all men’s blood: nothing in the entrusted counsel has been held back. The image of purity is tied to complete testimony.
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