What Does Acts 22:1 Mean?
Men, brothers, and fathers, hear the word I now speak back to you.
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
Men, brethren, and fathers, hear ye my defence which I make now unto you.THE KEY
The defense is placed inside kinship before it is weighed: the hearers are first called brothers, a word rooted in the same womb.
THE MEANING
The verse places you among the hearers: an account is spoken within a circle of men, kin, and fathers. Listening comes first; then the account can be weighed.
THE ROOT
ἀπολογία
apologia
GROWS FROM
λόγ-
log-
word, speech, account
“the word I now speak back to you” in this verse is apologia. The Greek word for “defence” carries the sense of an account spoken in response. It presents the defense as something offered to be heard and considered.
ALSO GROWS
logos: word, message, account
λόγος
The shared word-root shows how a defense can be a reasoned account made of words.
logizomai: reckon, consider
λογίζομαι
This branch brings the account toward thought and weighing, the response that follows hearing.
ἀδελφοί
adelphoi
GROWS FROM
δελφύς
delphys
womb; the source in the traditional formation of ἀδελφός, “from the same womb”
“brothers” in this verse is adelphoi. “Brethren” carries kinship in its word-shape: people joined as if born from one womb. The account is offered within a bond of belonging, among peers and fathers.
ALSO GROWS
adelphē: sister
ἀδελφή
The feminine form carries the same kinship-root and widens the family sense beneath the address.
adelphotēs: brotherhood, kinship
ἀδελφότης
This branch names the shared bond carried by the address to the hearers.
THE PATTERN
A testimony begins by asking hearers to receive an account before they weigh it.
Men, brothers, and fathers, give ear. The God of weight appeared to our father Abraham while he was in Mesopotamia, before he settled in Charran.But set apart the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you for a word about the hope within you, with gentleness and fear.The one who returns a word before he hears it, folly and shame are his.THE THREAD
But set apart the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you for a word about the hope within you, with gentleness and fear.The Greek word translated “defence” here is the same word translated “answer” in 1 Peter. It carries the sense of a reasoned account offered in response, linking this request to be heard with the readiness to speak about hope.
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