What Does Acts 20:36 Mean?
And when he had said these things, he set his knees down and prayed with them all.
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 kneeled down, and prayed with them all.THE KEY
Prayer begins with a placing: he sets his knees down and enters the shared moment with his whole body.
THE MEANING
Your prayer can involve your body and other people: here, knees lower and prayer is shared with everyone present. Prayer is something you can enter together, not only an inward thought.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that prayer must be solitary and disembodied gives way here: prayer happens with others present, and the body takes part.
THE ROOT
θεὶς τὰ γόνατα
theis ta gonata
GROWS FROM
τίθημι
to put, place, or set
“set his knees down” in this verse is theis ta gonata. Kneeling has a literal placing in it: θεὶς τὰ γόνατα (theis ta gonata, “having set the knees”) uses τίθημι (tithēmi, “to put or place”). Its compounds preserve the same action of putting something aside or laying it upon something, so prayer opens with a physical placement.
ALSO GROWS
apotithēmi: put aside; lay aside
ἀποτίθημι
The prefix directs the same placing action away, showing how this root can mark where something is set.
epitithēmi: put or lay upon
ἐπιτίθημι
The prefix directs the placing action onto something; here, the knees too are deliberately set into position.
THE PATTERN
Prayer takes bodily form through kneeling or bowing.
Enter, let us bow down and kneel before the face of the LORD who makes us.But Peter cast them all outside, and set his knees down, and prayed. And turning to the body, he said, Tabitha, stand up. And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter, she sat up.For this cause I bend my knees toward the Father of our Lord Jesus the Anointed One.THE THREAD
And he was pulled away from them about a stone's cast, and set his knees down, and prayed,Luke uses the same Greek construction as Acts: the knees are set down, then prayer follows. In Acts the prayer is shared with everyone present; in Luke the posture appears in solitude, showing that this embodied act can hold both company and aloneness.
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