What Does Acts 21:36 Mean?
For the crowd of the people followed after, crying out, Lift him away!
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
For the multitude of the people followed after, crying, Away with him.THE KEY
The cry rendered “Away with him” is an order to take him away, and the same Greek verb returns in the crowd’s demand against Jesus.
THE MEANING
The verse places one person inside the force of a crowd: many follow, and one command names him only as the one to be removed. Pursuit and shouted demand reinforce each other, showing how collective speech can close around a human being.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that a demand becomes just because many voices shout it together: the crowd’s unity amplifies its command to remove one person.
THE ROOT
αἶρε
aíre
GROWS FROM
αἰρ-
air-
To lift, take up, or carry; with an object, to take away or remove.
“Lift him away” in this verse is aíre. “Away with him” carries the force of a direct order: “Take him away.” The same verb family holds the senses of lifting and removing, and the removal command returns in John 19:15, aimed at Jesus.
ALSO GROWS
epairō: To lift up or raise; a compound built from αἴρω (aírō, “lift or take away”).
ἐπαίρω
John 11:41 uses it when Jesus lifts his eyes; the shared root holds raising and removal within one family of motion.
âron: “Take away!”; an imperative form of αἴρω (aírō, “lift or take away”).
ἆρον
John 19:15 uses this form in the crowd’s demand against Jesus, followed by “crucify him.”
THE PATTERN
When many voices converge, a person can become the target of a shared command.
And it was, when Jeremiah had finished speaking all that the LORD had commanded him to speak to all the people, that the priests and the prophets and all the people seized him, saying, "You shall surely die."And they cried out all together, saying, Lift this man away, and release Barabbas to us.But they cried out, Lift him away, lift him away, crucify him! Pilate said to them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar.THE THREAD
But they cried out, Lift him away, lift him away, crucify him! Pilate said to them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar.Acts has αἶρε (aíre, “take him away!”), from αἴρω (aírō, “lift or take away”); John uses ἆρον (âron, “take away!”), another imperative form of the same verb. John’s “crucify him” makes the bodily threat inside the removal command explicit.
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