What Does Acts 22:16 Mean?
And now why do you linger? Stand up, immerse yourself, and wash away your shortcomings, calling on the nature of the Lord.
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 now why tarriest thou? arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord.THE KEY
The cleansing is paired with a call on the Lord’s nature, so “the name” is the character being invoked, not a formula appended to the washing.
THE MEANING
What you have missed is washed away; the verse holds that cleansing together with rising, immersion, and calling on the Lord’s nature. The name is the nature of the one called upon.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
What you have missed permanently defines you and cannot be washed away.
THE ROOT
ἀπολούω
apolouō
GROWS FROM
λούω
louō
Wash or bathe; the compound carries the sense of washing off or away.
“wash away” in this verse is apolouō. The verb makes the missing something that can be washed off. Its image is subtractive: cleansing removes what clings rather than adding a new identity.
ALSO GROWS
louō: Wash, bathe
λούω
This is the verb at the heart of “wash away,” keeping the cleansing concrete.
loutron: Bath, washing
λουτρόν
This related word makes washing a named act of cleansing, as in the “washing” of Titus 3:5.
ἁμαρτία
hamartia
GROWS FROM
ἁμαρτ-
hamart-
Missing, failing to hit or attain.
“shortcomings” in this verse is hamartia. English “sins” can sound like a fixed category, while this word family retains the action of missing. Here, what is washed away is the missing itself, not the person.
ALSO GROWS
hamartanō: Miss, err, do wrong
ἁμαρτάνω
The verb preserves the action behind the noun: missing is something done, not a permanent name for the person.
hamartōlos: Sinner; one marked by missing
ἁμαρτωλός
The same family can describe a person by this condition, making the image of washing it away especially pointed.
ὄνομα
onoma
GROWS FROM
ὀνοματ-
onomat-
Name, designation; here, the nature represented by the one named.
“nature of the Lord” in this verse is onoma. The call is directed toward the Lord’s name as his nature, not merely toward a sound or label. The verse places that appeal alongside the washing away of what has been missed.
ALSO GROWS
onomazō: Name, call by name
ὀνομάζω
This verb shows the name as an act of identifying or designating someone.
epōnymos: Named after; bearing a name
ἐπώνυμος
This related word shows how a name can carry the identity of the one it designates.
THE PATTERN
What is missed is pictured as something washable rather than a permanent identity.
Tread me thoroughly clean of my crookedness, and cleanse me of my falling short.And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were set apart, but you were aligned, in the nature of the Lord Jesus and in the breath of our God.Not from works of alignment that we did, but according to his compassion he delivered us, through the bath of rebirth and the making new of the Set-Apart Breath.THE THREAD
And she will bring forth a son, and you will call his name Jesus, the LORD's deliverance, for he will deliver his people from their missing.Both verses use ὄνομα (onoma, name as nature) and ἁμαρτία (hamartia, missing): Matthew ties Jesus’ name to deliverance from the misses, while Acts joins the Lord’s name to their washing away. The repeated pair binds the appeal to the nature of the one who delivers.
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