What Does Acts 27:21 Mean?
And after long going without food, Paul stood up in the midst of them, and said, Men, you should have yielded to me and not put out from Crete, and gained this injury and this loss.
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
But after long abstinence Paul stood forth in the midst of them, and said, Sirs, ye should have hearkened unto me, and not have loosed from Crete, and to have gained this harm and loss.THE KEY
The word “gained” turns the voyage into a bitter account: its yield is harm and loss.
THE MEANING
A warning speaks into crisis with the cost still visible: this departure has produced harm and loss, and the ignored counsel remains part of the account. Forward movement alone does not prove that you are moving toward what is good.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that going forward automatically means making progress: a departure can carry you onward and still produce harm and loss.
THE ROOT
κερδῆσαι
kerdēsai
GROWS FROM
κερδ-
kerd-
gain or make a profit
“gained” in this verse is kerdēsai. The verse pairs a word for gaining with harm and loss, making disaster the voyage’s bitter yield. Its language opens an accounting: what matters is what this course actually produces.
ALSO GROWS
kerdos: gain, profit
κέρδος
This related noun gives the outcome the shape of a ledger: the action is measured by what it yields.
kerdainō: to gain, acquire as profit
κερδαίνω
This is the verb behind the form used here, framing the departure as a course that has yielded something.
ζημία
zēmia
GROWS FROM
ζημι-
zēmi-
damage, loss, or forfeiture
“loss” in this verse is zēmia. This names a counted cost, not a vague sense of regret. Beside “gained,” it makes the warning an account of what the choice has brought about.
ALSO GROWS
zēmioō: to damage or suffer loss
ζημιόω
The related verb describes loss as something incurred, bringing the passage’s stated cost into focus.
zēmia: damage or loss
ζημία
This noun names the concrete cost paired with the voyage’s supposed “gain.”
THE PATTERN
When counsel is dismissed, the consequence reveals the cost of the path.
You break loose from all my counsel, and you do not want my reproof.The way of a fool is straight in his own eyes, but the one who hears and responds to counsel is wise.But the one who hears and does not do is like a human who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The river burst against it, and at once it fell, and the breaking of that house was great.THE THREAD
But what things were gain to me, those I have counted as loss for the Anointed One.Acts places gain and loss in the same account, describing a voyage whose yield is harm. Philippians uses the same Greek gain and loss word-family, opening a shared question in both verses: what does a course of action actually produce?
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