What Does Acts 22:23 Mean?
And as they shrieked, and flung off their cloaks, and threw dust into the air,
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 as they cried out, and cast off their clothes, and threw dust into the air,THE KEY
The Greek throwing-root links these flung garments to people cast down and to cares cast onto God: one motion can expose distress or place it elsewhere.
THE MEANING
Fury takes over the whole scene: voices rise, garments are flung aside, and dust is sent into the air. Inner agitation becomes something bodies and surroundings display.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Anger is only a private feeling or a matter of words. Here it appears in bodies and in what they throw.
THE ROOT
ῥιπτούντων
rhiptountōn
GROWS FROM
ῥιπ-
rhip-
To throw, fling, or cast down.
“flung off” in this verse is rhiptountōn. English can make “cast off” sound like simply discarding clothing, but the same Greek root appears in words for people cast down and cares cast onto God. Here the throwing makes the crowd’s fury physical; elsewhere, the same motion can place what weighs on someone into another’s care.
ALSO GROWS
errimmenoi: Cast down, thrown down; rendered “scattered abroad” in Matthew 9:36.
ἐρριμμένοι
The same root describes people laid low, echoing how distress can be made visible in the body.
epiripsantes: Casting upon; rendered “casting” in 1 Peter 5:7.
ἐπιρίψαντες
This compound uses the same throwing root for placing care upon God, showing how the direction of the throw changes what it expresses.
THE PATTERN
Collective fury moves from shared words into visible bodily and material action.
But all the assembly said to stone them with stones. And the weight of the LORD was seen in the tent of meeting before all the children of Israel.Then they cried out with a loud voice, and held shut their ears, and rushed upon him with one passion.Then they lifted stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the middle of them, and so passed by.THE THREAD
throwing all your divided care upon him, for you matter to him.The Greek verb for “cast off” here and the verb translated “casting” there share ῥιπ- (rhip-, “throw”). Here, the throw sends garments and dust outward in fury; there, the same root describes placing care upon God.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us