What Does Acts 20:29 Mean?
For I know this, that after my leaving, heavy wolves will come in among you, not holding back from the flock.
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
For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.THE KEY
The wolves are described as weight that bears down on the flock, with no restraint to spare it.
THE MEANING
The danger can enter among a gathered people; belonging together does not make the flock invulnerable. The harm bears down, and the wolves show no restraint toward those in their reach.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that danger only comes from outside a community, or that being gathered together makes it automatically safe.
THE ROOT
βαρεῖς
bareis
GROWS FROM
βαρ- (bar-, the stem behind βαρύς)
heavy, weighty; bearing down
“heavy” in this verse is bareis. The word carries the sense of weight: these wolves bear down on the flock with force. That weight adds a physical dimension to the harm conveyed by “grievous.”
ALSO GROWS
baros: weight, burden
βάρος
This branch makes the pressure in “grievous wolves” more vivid: their presence weighs on the flock.
bareō: weigh down, burden
βαρέω
This verb carries the same weight-bearing sense, showing how the danger presses upon those in its reach.
φειδόμενοι
pheidomenoi
GROWS FROM
φειδ- (pheid-, from φείδομαι, pheidomai)
to spare, withhold harm, or exercise restraint
“not holding back” in this verse is pheidomenoi. “Not sparing” names the absence of restraint: the wolves do not hold back from the flock. The same verb appears in Romans 8:32 as “spared not,” foregrounding what is not withheld; here, it is protection from the wolves.
ALSO GROWS
epheisato: spared
ἐφείσατο
Romans 8:32 uses this form of the same verb in “He that spared not his own Son,” making the sense of withholding or restraint clear.
pheidomenōs: sparingly, with restraint
φειδομένως
In 2 Corinthians 9:6, this related form describes giving sparingly; Acts uses the family to say that the wolves give the flock no such restraint.
ποιμνίου
poimniou
GROWS FROM
ποιμν-
poimn-
flock, a group held together through shepherding
The word for flock belongs to the family of words for shepherd and shepherding. The threatened group is presented through the care that holds it together, so the danger reaches into that relation of tending as well as toward its members.
ALSO GROWS
poimēn: shepherd
ποιμήν
The flock’s word-family includes the one who tends it, linking the threatened group to the care its name implies.
poimainō: shepherd, tend, feed
ποιμαίνω
This verb describes the work of tending a flock, giving the image a living bond of care that the wolves threaten.
THE PATTERN
Predatory harm reaches a flock when destructive force enters its midst and protection cannot hold.
Watch for false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inside they are snatching wolves.But the hired hand, who is not the shepherd, and whose sheep they are not, sees the wolf coming, and lets go of the sheep, and flees. And the wolf snatches them and scatters them.They were scattered, because there is no shepherd, and they became food for every beast of the field, when they were scattered.THE THREAD
But the hired hand, who is not the shepherd, and whose sheep they are not, sees the wolf coming, and lets go of the sheep, and flees. And the wolf snatches them and scatters them.Both verses use λύκος (lykos, wolf), the same Greek word-family: Acts warns of wolves who do not spare the flock, while John shows the wolf catching and scattering sheep. John makes the harm named in Acts visible as capture and dispersal.
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