What Does Acts 25:26 Mean?
About whom I have nothing firm to write to my lord. Therefore I have led him forward before all your faces, and most of all before your face, King Agrippa, so that once the sifting has been done, I may hold something to write.
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
Of whom I have no certain thing to write unto my lord. Wherefore I have brought him forth before you, and specially before thee, O king Agrippa, that, after examination had, I might have somewhat to write.THE KEY
The inquiry begins because the written record is empty: the need for certainty itself puts a person on display.
THE MEANING
When you are under scrutiny, this verse names the pressure to produce a definite account even while the matter remains unclear. An examination can become a search for something to record, not simply a response to a settled charge.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being examined does not itself establish a charge; the demand for a definite record can arise precisely because no sure account exists yet.
THE ROOT
ἀσφαλής
asphalēs
GROWS FROM
σφαλ-
sphal-
To stumble or fall; with the privative prefix a-, secure, not liable to fall.
“nothing firm” in this verse is asphalēs. The Greek word carries the sense of something that will not slip or fall. There is no firm footing for a written account yet, so the examination becomes an attempt to find something stable enough to record.
ALSO GROWS
asphaleia: Security, safety, certainty
ἀσφάλεια
This related noun shows the same family describing what is secure or sure, the quality Festus lacks for his report.
asphalizō: To secure, make fast
ἀσφαλίζω
The verb gives the family a concrete edge: the search is for something that can hold as a reliable written account.
ἀνάκρισις
anakrisis
GROWS FROM
κρίνω
krinō
To separate, distinguish, decide, or judge.
“once the sifting has been done” in this verse is anakrisis. The Greek word family keeps examination close to the act of sorting and judging. Here the inquiry is still open, yet it is already shaped by the need to find something recordable.
ALSO GROWS
anakrinō: To examine, inquire into, or scrutinize
ἀνακρίνω
This related verb makes the examination in the verse part of a larger act of inquiry and discernment.
krisis: Judgment or decision
κρίσις
The shared root links investigation to judgment, showing that the inquiry sits close to the question of what can be decided.
THE PATTERN
A judgment meant to stand depends on a matter that can actually be established.
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.I found him charged over questions they sought in their instruction, yet nothing laid to his charge was worthy of death or of bindings.Pilate said to him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again to the Judeans, and said to them, I find no cause in him at all.THE THREAD
He said to them, You brought this man to me as one who turns the people away. And look, I, having sifted him before you, found no fault in this man concerning the things you accuse him of.Luke uses the same Greek examination word, linking scrutiny with the work of distinguishing what can be charged. In both verses the inquiry meets a gap between accusation and an established account; here, the need for a report presses that inquiry toward something recordable.
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