What Does Acts 24:20 Mean?
Or else let these same ones say, if they found any unaligned deed in me while I stood before the seated council.
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
Or else let these same here say, if they have found any evil doing in me, while I stood before the council,THE KEY
The verse makes an accusation answer to a specific act: what wrong was actually found?
THE MEANING
A charge against you has to become concrete: what wrong was found, and who found it? The verse brings a broad accusation down to an act that can be named and examined. A claim without that account remains unproved.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that an accusation becomes proof through repetition or authority; the charge still has to identify a wrongful act and those who claim to have found it.
THE ROOT
ἀδίκημα
adíkēma
GROWS FROM
ἀδικ- (adīk-, built from ἀ- + δίκη, dikē)
Injustice: what is done against δίκη (dikē), meaning justice or what is right.
“unaligned deed” in this verse is adíkēma. The Greek noun points to an actual wrong or injustice, while its word family names doing wrong and injustice itself. “Evil doing” can sound broad; the Greek presses toward a wrongful act that can be identified, which is exactly what the speakers are asked to say they found.
ALSO GROWS
adikeō: To do wrong or act unjustly.
ἀδικέω
The verb names the act behind the accusation: wrongdoing must be something someone did.
adikia: Injustice or wrongdoing.
ἀδικία
This related noun shows that the word family holds both the wrongful act and the condition of injustice.
THE PATTERN
An accusation has to answer to a named act and testimony that can be examined.
One witness shall not rise up against a man for any crookedness, or for any falling short, in it he misses the mark; upon the mouth of two witnesses, or upon the mouth of three witnesses, the word shall stand.The aligned one at the head of his own contention seems straight, but his neighbor comes and searches him out.Jesus answered him, If I have spoken badly, bear witness to what is bad. But if well, why do you beat me?THE THREAD
And when Paul was about to open his mouth, Gallio said to the Jews, If there were some crookedness or reckless wickedness, O Jews, I would reasonably have borne with you.Acts 18:14 uses the same Greek noun, ἀδίκημα, for a matter of wrong. In both scenes, the word turns accusation from a general cloud into a claim about an actual injustice someone must identify.
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