What Does Acts 21:10 Mean?
And as we stayed there many days, there came down from Judea a certain prophet, named Agabus.
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 as we tarried there many days, there came down from Judæa a certain prophet, named Agabus.THE KEY
The word prophet carries the sense of speaking forth, so Agabus’s arrival turns the long wait into a threshold for a word.
THE MEANING
For you, a long stretch of waiting can still become the threshold through which a word arrives from beyond your immediate horizon. The verse names Agabus as a prophet before disclosing his message, so his arrival begins the unveiling. The days of staying do not close what can still come into view.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that a long wait proves nothing more is coming.
THE ROOT
προφήτης
prophētēs
GROWS FROM
φημί
phēmi
To say or speak; in προφήτης, the speaking is directed forth as a declaration.
Beneath the familiar word prophet is the audible center of speaking. Agabus is identified by the voice he bears before the verse tells you what he says.
ALSO GROWS
prophēteuō: To prophesy or speak prophetically.
προφητεύω
The same speaking family becomes the act of delivering a prophetic message.
phēmē: A saying, report, or reputation.
φήμη
This branch keeps speech itself in view: Agabus arrives as a voice whose message is about to be heard.
ἐπιμενόντων
epimenontōn
GROWS FROM
μένω
menō
To remain, stay, or continue.
“stayed” in this verse is epimenontōn. The Greek verb presents the waiting as continued presence through many days. The arrival of the prophet follows that sustained staying, so the passage holds waiting and disclosure in the same movement.
ALSO GROWS
epimenō: To remain, continue, or persist.
ἐπιμένω
This is the verb behind tarried; it gives the waiting the texture of continuing to stay.
paramenō: To remain beside or continue.
παραμένω
This related form preserves the idea of staying present over time, the setting in which Agabus arrives.
THE PATTERN
Prophecy gives audible form to disclosure, carrying a word into the community that hears it.
For the Lord GOD does nothing, unless he uncovers his secret to his servants the prophets.But the one who prophesies speaks to people for building up, for urging, and for consolation.THE THREAD
And when he came to us, he lifted Paul's belt, and bound his own hands and feet, and said, Thus says the Set-Apart Breath, so will the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man whose belt this is, and will hand him over into the hands of the nations.The next verse gives Agabus’s message and its cost: he enacts the prophecy by binding his own hands and feet, then foretells Paul’s binding. His arrival in verse 10 is the threshold to a word that speaks through a stark bodily sign.
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