What Does Acts 22:20 Mean?
And when the blood of your witness Stephen was poured out, I myself was standing over, consenting to his death, and guarding the cloaks of those lifting him out of the way.
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 when the blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by, and consenting unto his death, and kept the raiment of them that slew him.THE KEY
Stephen is called a “witness,” and the verse shows that someone can share in a witness’s killing by approving it and keeping the killers’ clothes.
THE MEANING
Standing beside a witness’s killing does not make you a bystander when you approve it and keep the killers’ garments. Consent becomes participation both through agreement and through practical service to the act.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the claim that only the hand that throws a stone participates: agreement and custody can bind a bystander to the killing.
THE ROOT
μάρτυρός
martyros
GROWS FROM
μαρτυρ-
martyr-
witness; one who bears testimony
The Greek word carries the sense “witness,” the source of English “martyr,” so Stephen is named through testimony even as his blood is shed. The same word family reaches “testimony” and “bear witness,” keeping the language of witness present in the account of the killing.
ALSO GROWS
martyria: testimony
μαρτυρία
This noun makes the witness’s spoken or lived testimony visible in the same word family.
martyreō: testify, bear witness
μαρτυρέω
The verb shows the action carried by the name: a witness gives testimony.
συνευδοκῶν
syneudokōn
GROWS FROM
συν- + εὐδοκέω (syn + eudokeō)
approve together; agree with another
“consenting to his death” in this verse is syneudokōn. The word names approval joined to others, so Saul’s presence is also agreement with the act. Beside the guarded garments, consent appears both as approval and as practical support.
ALSO GROWS
eudokeō: approve, be pleased with
εὐδοκέω
This base word shows the approval at the center of Saul’s consent.
syneudokeō: consent, approve with another
συνευδοκέω
This compound is the verb used here; its “with” sense joins Saul’s approval to the others’ action.
φυλάσσων
phylassōn
GROWS FROM
φυλακ-
phylak-
guard, keep watch, hold in custody
The verb makes “kept” an active act of guarding, not an incidental detail: Saul holds the garments belonging to those killing Stephen. Its word family also names guards and custody, placing this act of keeping within the practical structure around the violence.
ALSO GROWS
phylakē: guard duty, custody; prison
φυλακή
The same family links keeping with custody, illuminating Saul’s role as keeper of the executioners’ garments.
phylax: guard, watchman
φύλαξ
This branch names the person who guards, bringing out the active sense of “kept.”
THE PATTERN
A killed witness is not erased: the blood and testimony keep exposing the violence around it.
And the LORD said, What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground.And they threw him out of the city and stoned him, and the witnesses laid down their cloaks at the feet of a young man called Saul.I know where you settle, where the throne of the Adversary is, and you grip my name, and you have not denied my trust, even in those days when Antipas, my steady witness, was killed among you, where the Adversary settles.THE THREAD
And they threw him out of the city and stoned him, and the witnesses laid down their cloaks at the feet of a young man called Saul.The Greek word behind “witnesses” here shares the μαρτυρ- (martyr-) stem with “martyr” in Acts 22:20. The men whose clothes Saul keeps are called witnesses as they stone Stephen, so testimony, violence, and Saul’s custody of the garments meet in one scene.
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