What Does Acts 26:14 Mean?
And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice speaking to me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why do you pursue me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.
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 when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.THE KEY
The voice collapses the distance between the persecutor and the pursued: harming these people is pursuing the speaker himself.
THE MEANING
The voice says that pursuing these people is also pursuing the speaker. The goad image makes resistance physical: when you kick against the sharp point, the wound falls on the kicker. The repeated name makes the address personal before it names the act.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that harm to the pursued can leave the speaker untouched.
THE ROOT
διώκεις
diōkeis
GROWS FROM
διωκ-
diōk-
to pursue, chase
The Greek verb διώκω (diōkō), “pursue,” names the motion beneath “persecute.” English can make persecution sound like a separate kind of action, while the Greek keeps its sense of pursuit in view.
ALSO GROWS
diōkō: to pursue, chase
διώκω
This is the verb’s basic form; its pursuit sense makes the violence here a directed chase.
diōktēs: persecutor, pursuer
διώκτης
The same stem names the person who pursues, linking Saul’s identity in this moment to the action he is doing.
diōgmos: persecution, pursuit
διωγμός
This noun preserves the same pursuit beneath the English word “persecution.”
κέντρα
kentra
GROWS FROM
κεντρ-
kentr-
a point, a sharp pricking instrument
“goads” in this verse is kentra. The Greek noun κέντρον (kentron), “goad” or “sting,” is the same word translated “sting” in 1 Corinthians 15:55. English separates the tool that drives forward from the point that wounds, while the shared word holds them together: kicking against the point turns its force back on the kicker.
ALSO GROWS
kentron: goad, sting, sharp point
κέντρον
In 1 Corinthians 15:55 the same noun is translated “sting”; the goad’s guiding point and the sting’s wound share one word.
kenteō: to prick, goad
κεντέω
This related verb names the sharp contact at the heart of the image: a goad acts by pricking.
שָׁאוּל
Sha'ul
GROWS FROM
שאל
sha'al
to ask, request
“Saul” in this verse is Sha'ul. The name Sha’ul carries the sense “asked for” or “requested,” from the root for asking. The double address meets the pursuer by name before confronting him with what he is doing.
ALSO GROWS
sha'al: to ask, request
שָׁאַל
This verb is the seed of the name’s sense, placing “asked for” inside Saul’s name.
she'elah: request, petition
שְׁאֵלָה
This noun grows from the same root and shows the root’s continuing sense of asking.
THE PATTERN
The voice identifies itself with the people a person harms.
For thus says the LORD of hosts. After the weight, he has sent me to the nations that plundered you, for whoever touches you touches the pupil of his eye.And the King answers and says to them, Truly, I say to you, Whatever you did to one of the least of these my brothers, you did to me.If one limb aches, all the limbs ache with it, and if one is clothed in weight, all of them rejoice with it.THE THREAD
Not that I have already taken hold, or have already been made complete. But I pursue, if somehow I may seize that for which I was also seized by Jesus the Anointed One.The Greek verb διώκω (diōkō), “pursue,” is translated “persecutest” here and “follow after” there. The same motion can be directed against a person or toward a calling; its direction and object disclose what the pursuit is becoming.
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