What Does Acts 27:8 Mean?
And creeping along the coast with difficulty, we came to a place called Fair Havens, near which was the city of Lasea.
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, hardly passing it, came unto a place which is called The fair havens; nigh whereunto was the city of Lasea.THE KEY
The harbor is called good even though reaching it is hard: goodness here means shelter that receives you in the strain.
THE MEANING
You can be moving with difficulty and still be nearing a place of shelter. The name “Fair Havens” places goodness in what a harbor offers, even while the passage toward it remains hard.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A hard approach does not mean the place of shelter ahead is not good.
THE ROOT
καλοὺς
kalous
GROWS FROM
καλ-
kal-
Good, beautiful, or admirable.
The place is literally called “Good Harbors.” The Greek word carries both the sense of beauty and goodness, so “fair” names more than pleasing scenery: it names a place whose goodness is shelter.
ALSO GROWS
kállos: Beauty.
κάλλος
This related form shows the root’s connection to what is beautiful, a shade English “good” alone does not carry.
kállistos: Fairest or best.
κάλλιστος
The superlative keeps beauty and goodness together, echoing the harbor’s name as a quality of the place.
THE PATTERN
Shelter is goodness made usable in a moment of strain.
Then they are glad, for they are quiet; and he leads them to the harbor of their delight.For you have been a stronghold to the drooping, a stronghold to the one who reaches in his narrow place, a shelter from the downpour, a shade from the dry heat, when the breath of the fierce ones is like a downpour against the wall.Come to me, all you who toil and have been loaded down, and I will give you rest.THE THREAD
And since the harbor was not well placed for wintering, the greater number resolved to put out from there also, if by any means they might reach Phenice and winter there, a harbor of Crete looking toward the southwest and the northwest.The Greek word for “haven” returns, but the place named Good Harbors is not suited to every need: it cannot conveniently hold them through winter. Its goodness is real and specific, measured by the shelter it can offer for a given season.
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