What Does Acts 28:9 Mean?
So when this had been done, others also on the island who had weakness came, and were healed.
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
So when this was done, others also, which had diseases in the island, came, and were healed:THE KEY
In the Greek, healing is also attending to: restoration arrives as care people can come near.
THE MEANING
When illness narrows the world, this verse keeps open the possibility of moving toward care and receiving healing. Restoration widens beyond one person as others come and are healed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that restoration is reserved for one exceptional person is undone as the verse widens to include others with illnesses.
THE ROOT
ἐθεραπεύοντο
etherapeuonto
GROWS FROM
θεραπευ-
therapeu-
To attend to, care for, serve; also to treat or heal.
θεραπεύω (therapeuō) can mean attend to, care for, or heal. So “were healed” carries more than a result: it also holds the nearness of someone tending those who came.
ALSO GROWS
therapeia: Care, attendance, treatment, healing.
θεραπεία
The related noun holds both care and healing in the same word-family.
therapōn: Attendant, servant.
θεράπων
This related word for an attendant makes the attentive, personal dimension of healing easier to see.
ἀσθενείας
astheneias
GROWS FROM
ἀσθεν-
asthen-
Weakness or lack of strength; illness as a state of weakness.
The word belongs to a family for weakness and being weak or ill. The verse thus shows depleted strength meeting care, alongside the more familiar sense of diseases.
ALSO GROWS
asthenēs: Weak, ill.
ἀσθενής
This adjective uses the same word-family to describe the person experiencing weakness or illness.
astheneō: To be weak, to be ill.
ἀσθενέω
The related verb names the state behind the illnesses brought for care.
THE PATTERN
Healing widens from one person’s need into care that reaches many.
Who releases all your crookedness; who heals all your sicknesses.And the sound of him went out through all Syria, and they carried to him all who were ill, held by many-colored sicknesses and torments, and those gripped by demons, and those struck by the moon, and those who were paralyzed, and he healed them.And a crowd also gathered from the cities all around to Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those pressed upon by unclean breaths, and every one of them was healed.THE THREAD
And a crowd also gathered from the cities all around to Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those pressed upon by unclean breaths, and every one of them was healed.Both verses use θεραπεύω (therapeuō), meaning to attend to, care for, or heal. Both also pair people coming with healing, keeping the care within “were healed” visible.
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