What Does Acts 21:17 Mean?
And when we came to Jerusalem, the brothers took us in gladly.
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 we were come to Jerusalem, the brethren received us gladly.THE KEY
Here, arrival in Jerusalem becomes complete in the brethren’s glad welcome.
THE MEANING
Your arrival becomes more than reaching a place when people receive you with gladness. The verse holds arrival and welcome together: belonging meets you in the act of being received.
THE ROOT
ἀπεδέξαντο
apedexanto
GROWS FROM
δεχ
The Greek stem δεχ (dech-) means to receive or accept.
“took in” in this verse is apedexanto. The verse’s ἀπεδέξαντο is a form of ἀποδέχομαι (apodechomai, “receive, welcome”); the stem’s χ shifts to ξ before the aorist ending. The word carries the sense of being welcomed in, and the verse makes that reception explicitly glad.
ALSO GROWS
dechomai: Receive, accept
δέχομαι
This is the base verb in the same δεχ family, showing that the verse describes the brethren taking the travelers in.
apodechomai: Receive, welcome
ἀποδέχομαι
This is the verb behind the form in the verse; its compound form names an active welcome.
prosdechomai: Receive, welcome, await
προσδέχομαι
It shares the δεχ stem and shows reception as a wider family of welcome and expectant receiving.
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
ש־ל־ם
The ש־ל־ם (sh-l-m) family carries the sense of wholeness and completeness.
Jerusalem’s Hebrew name shares the consonants of שָׁלוֹם (shalom, “wholeness”) and שָׁלֵם (shalem, “whole, complete”). The verse locates glad welcome in a place whose name echoes wholeness: arrival is met with belonging.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, well-being
שָׁלוֹם
This shared consonantal family gives Jerusalem a resonance with wholeness; the glad reception makes that wholeness relational.
shalem: Whole, complete
שָׁלֵם
This branch deepens the name’s resonance: the travelers arrive and are welcomed as people who belong.
THE PATTERN
Welcome turns someone’s arrival into shared belonging.
And I will take a morsel of bread, and prop up your hearts. After that you shall pass on, for therefore you have crossed over to your servant. And they said, So you shall make it, as you have spoken.Therefore take hold of one another, as the Anointed One also took hold of us, to the end that God is given weight.Do not let slip the opening of your home to strangers, for by it some have sheltered messengers without knowing it.THE THREAD
Now when Jesus returned, the crowd welcomed him gladly, for they were all waiting for him.Luke uses the same Greek verb, ἀπεδέξατο (apedexato, “received, welcomed”), for the crowd’s reception of Jesus. The shared word lets the welcome in Acts echo across another arrival: people are met by glad receiving.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us