What Does Acts 23:4 Mean?
And those standing beside him said, "Do you hurl abuse at God's chief of the set-apart ones?"
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 that stood by said, Revilest thou God’s high priest?THE KEY
The question makes the priest’s title the measure of Paul’s words, linking an insult to the office with an offense against God.
THE MEANING
A challenge to speech against a sacred office can redirect attention from the dispute to the speaker’s manner. Here, the charge reaches beyond the person addressed because the office is named as God’s high priest.
THE ROOT
λοιδορεῖς
loidoreis
GROWS FROM
λοιδορ-
To abuse or insult with words.
“hurl abuse at” in this verse is loidoreis. The word belongs to a family that names both abusive speech and the person who uses it, so the accusation classifies Paul’s words as reviling. The verse shows how the priest’s title makes the manner of address the immediate issue, while leaving the dispute itself unresolved.
ALSO GROWS
loidoria: Reviling; abusive speech
λοιδορία
The noun names the kind of speech the bystanders hear in Paul’s words.
loidoros: A reviler; an abusive person
λοιδορός
This related word names the speaker by the same kind of speech attributed to Paul here.
THE PATTERN
Speech against a sacred office is treated as speech against the authority it represents.
You shall not curse the gods, nor curse the lifted one of your people.Then Paul said, "I did not see, brothers, that he was the chief of the set-apart ones; for it stands written, You shall not speak badly of the first of your people."Honor all people. Love the brothers. Stand in awe of God. Honor the king.THE THREAD
Then Paul said, "I did not see, brothers, that he was the chief of the set-apart ones; for it stands written, You shall not speak badly of the first of your people."The next verse gives Paul’s answer: he cites the command against speaking evil of the people’s ruler. The citation shows that the objection concerns how speech relates to an office, not only to the person holding it.
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