What Does Acts 22:22 Mean?
And they listened to him up to this word, and then lifted up their voices, saying, Lift such a one away from the earth, for it does not fall to him to live.
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 they gave him audience unto this word, and then lifted up their voices, and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth: for it is not fit that he should live.THE KEY
The same Greek verb that raises the crowd’s voices becomes its command to take the speaker away.
THE MEANING
The crowd hears him up to this word, and then its listening becomes a demand that he be taken from the earth. It calls his life unfit because his speech has crossed its boundary. The verse exposes how hearing can give way to a verdict against the speaker.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that being heard means being safe dissolves here: a crowd can listen and still demand a speaker’s death.
THE ROOT
ἐπῆραν
epēran
GROWS FROM
αἴρω
airō
to raise, take up, carry off, or remove
“lifted up” in this verse is epēran. The shared verb joins the raised cry to the demand for removal: the crowd’s voice rises, then turns its force on the speaker. Its command carries the same verb’s sense of taking away into an order for expulsion.
ALSO GROWS
epēran: they raised or lifted up
ἐπῆραν
The crowd raises its voices, giving the verb’s upward motion a public, audible form.
aire: take away; remove
αἶρε
The crowd uses the same verb to demand that the speaker be removed from the earth.
THE PATTERN
When a speaker’s words cross a crowd’s boundary, hearing can turn into a demand to remove or kill the speaker.
And it was, when Jeremiah had finished speaking all that the LORD had commanded him to speak to all the people, that the priests and the prophets and all the people seized him, saying, "You shall surely die."For the crowd of the people followed after, crying out, Lift him away!But they cried out, Lift him away, lift him away, crucify him! Pilate said to them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar.THE THREAD
But they cried out, Lift him away, lift him away, crucify him! Pilate said to them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar.John uses the same verb, αἴρω (airō), in “Away with him” that Acts uses in its command to remove this man. In Acts, that verb also appears in “lifted up their voices,” linking the raised cry to the demand for expulsion.
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