What Does Acts 21:9 Mean?
This same man had four daughters, virgins, who prophesied.
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 the same man had four daughters, virgins, which did prophesy.THE KEY
The verse locates prophetic authority in the act of speaking, not in a male title.
THE MEANING
Four daughters speak, and the verse names what they do as prophecy. Their voices stand inside the text’s own category of prophetic speech.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a woman’s speech cannot be prophecy: this verse calls the daughters’ speech prophetic.
THE ROOT
προφητεύουσαι
prophēteuousai
GROWS FROM
φημί
phēmi
to speak, declare
“prophesy” in this verse is prophēteuousai. English gives the act a specialized word, while Greek keeps it joined to a speech family that names a prophet, a prophetess, and prophecy. The verse places these four daughters in that family through what they do.
ALSO GROWS
prophētēs: prophet
προφήτης
The related noun names the person whose speech belongs to this prophetic family.
prophētis: prophetess
προφήτις
The feminine form makes the daughters’ place in the prophetic speaking family explicit.
prophēteia: prophecy, prophetic speech
προφητεία
This noun names the speech itself, the same kind of speech the daughters enact.
THE PATTERN
Prophetic speech is distributed across people rather than contained in a single gender or office.
And Moses said to him, "Are you burning for my sake? Would that all the LORD's people were prophets, and that the LORD would set his breath upon them!"And it will come to pass in the last days, God says, I will pour out my breath upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy, and your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams.But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered shames her head, for it is one and the same as if she were shaved.THE THREAD
And it will come to pass in the last days, God says, I will pour out my breath upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy, and your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams.The same Greek verb translated “prophesy” appears in both verses. Acts 2:17 names daughters among those who prophesy, and Acts 21:9 makes that naming concrete in four daughters.
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