What Does Acts 20:6 Mean?
And we sailed out from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread, and came to them at Troas in five days, where we wore away seven days.
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 we sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread, and came unto them to Troas in five days; where we abode seven days.THE KEY
The Greek word translated “abode” means to spend time: arrival is only part of the journey, and seven days are lived through at Troas.
THE MEANING
Life reaches you in movement and in intervals of remaining; a stop is not empty space between destinations. The seven days at Troas give staying a real place in the journey.
THE ROOT
διετρίψαμεν
dietripsamen
GROWS FROM
τρίβω
Rub or wear; διατρίβω (diatríbō), formed with διά (dia, through), means to spend time or stay.
“wore away” in this verse is dietripsamen. The Greek verb is διατρίβω (diatríbō), meaning to spend time or remain in a place. Its root carries the image of rubbing or wearing through, giving the seven days a texture of time passed, not merely a point on a map.
ALSO GROWS
tribō: Rub or wear.
τρίβω
This is the root within the verb translated “abode,” linking the stay to time spent and worn through.
tribos: A beaten or trodden path.
τρίβος
The related word for a path echoes the journey’s movement, while διατρίβω marks the time spent along the way.
THE PATTERN
A journey takes shape through both movement between places and time spent in a place.
And her brother and her mother said, Let the young woman settle with us a few days, at the least ten; after that she shall go.And he said to them, Wherever you enter a house, remain there until you go out from that place.And finding learners, we stayed there seven days, and they said to Paul through the breath, that he should not go up to Jerusalem.THE THREAD
And finding learners, we stayed there seven days, and they said to Paul through the breath, that he should not go up to Jerusalem.“Tarried” here translates the same Greek word family as “abode” in Acts 20:6: διατρίβω (diatríbō), to spend time or stay. The repeated seven-day interval reveals staying as a measured part of the journey, not a gap outside it.
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