What Does Acts 21:26 Mean?
Then Paul took the men alongside him, and on the next day, cleansing himself with them, entered the temple, to make visible the filling of the days of cleansing, until the offering was brought near for each one of them.
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
Then Paul took the men, and the next day purifying himself with them entered into the temple, to signify the accomplishment of the days of purification, until that an offering should be offered for every one of them.THE KEY
The Greek uses one purity-root for both being purified and the days of purification, making the rite a process with a marked completion.
THE MEANING
Purity here is a shared passage with a measured span: the days reach their end, and an offering marks completion for each person. The temple is where that completion becomes visible. Cleansing has a threshold and a public form.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that purity is merely a private state: here it unfolds with others across a span and reaches visible completion.
THE ROOT
ἁγνισθείς
hagnistheis
GROWS FROM
ἁγν-
hagn-
Purity or cleanness; freedom from defilement.
“purifying” in this verse is hagnistheis. English uses a verb for the act and a noun for the days, but Greek gives both the same ἁγν- (hagn-) seed. The shared root joins a person’s purification with the measured span in which it reaches completion.
ALSO GROWS
hagnismos: The act or state of purification.
ἁγνισμός
This is the verse’s own word for the days, repeating the root used for the act of purification.
hagnos: Pure or clean, whether ritually or morally.
ἁγνός
It names the state toward which the purification moves.
hagneia: Purity or chastity.
ἁγνεία
It shows how the same root can name a continuing state, as well as an act or period of purification.
προσφορά
prosphora
GROWS FROM
φέρ- (pher-, carry or bear), with πρός (pros-, toward)
The word is formed from προσφέρω (prospherō), to bring toward or offer; its base φέρω (pherō) means carry or bear.
“offering was brought near” in this verse is prosphora. The offering is something brought forward. It gives the completion of purification a concrete marker for each person.
ALSO GROWS
prospherō: To bring toward or present.
προσφέρω
This verb shares the offering’s word-family and makes the act of presentation audible in the noun.
pherō: To carry or bear.
φέρω
This base gives the offering the sense of something carried forward and presented.
THE PATTERN
Purification marks a passage out of uncleanness and makes restored approach or shared life visible.
And the priest shall offer the offering for falling short, and make a covering for the one being cleansed from his soiling. Afterward he shall slaughter the rising offering.Let us draw near with a true heart in the fullness of trust, our hearts sprinkled from a burdened shared sight, and our bodies bathed in clean waters.But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we share in common one with another, and the blood of Jesus, the Anointed One, his Son, cleanses us from all falling short.THE THREAD
Among these, certain Jews from Asia found me washed clean in the temple, neither with a crowd nor with a din.Acts 24:18 uses another form of ἁγνίζω (hagnizō, purify) for being purified in the temple. That shared seed links this verse’s days of purification to the completed state named in the second verse.
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