What Does Acts 22:17 Mean?
And it happened, when I had turned back to Jerusalem, and while I was praying in the temple, that I came to be beside myself.
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 it came to pass, that, when I was come again to Jerusalem, even while I prayed in the temple, I was in a trance;THE KEY
The word translated “trance” carries the image of being displaced from your ordinary way of standing, and this happens in the middle of prayer.
THE MEANING
Prayer is a place where your usual way of perceiving can be displaced. The encounter opens while you are praying in the temple, not after prayer ends. The familiar gives way from within the place of prayer.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this undoes is that prayer can only hold what you already perceive; here, perception shifts from within prayer itself.
THE ROOT
ἔκστασις
ekstasis
GROWS FROM
ἵστημι
histēmi
to stand, set in place
“came to be beside myself” in this verse is ekstasis. The Greek ἔκστασις (ekstasis) is connected to ἐξίστημι (existēmi), “to stand outside” or be displaced. The verse places this shift in perception inside prayer in the temple: the encounter arrives as ordinary footing gives way.
ALSO GROWS
stasis: standing, position, or state
στάσις
It makes the root’s image of a settled position visible, giving weight to what changes in an ekstasis.
existēmi: to stand outside, become displaced or astonished
ἐξίστημι
This verb carries the movement behind “trance”: perception is moved beyond its ordinary position.
THE PATTERN
Prayer can open into an encounter that displaces ordinary perception while the person is still within it.
Yea, while I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being sent in swift flight, touched me at the time of the evening gift.And he became very hungry and longed to taste, but while they made ready, he fell beside himself.I was in the city of Joppa praying, and beside myself I saw a vision. A vessel coming down, like a great sheet let down from heaven by four corners, and it came even to me.THE THREAD
And he became very hungry and longed to taste, but while they made ready, he fell beside himself.The same Greek noun, ἔκστασις (ekstasis), is translated “trance” in both verses. Peter’s account in Acts 11:5 places this state within prayer, while Acts 10:10 shows it alongside bodily hunger and the preparation of food.
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