What Does Acts 3:11 Mean?
And as the lame man, who had been healed, held fast to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the colonnade called Solomon's, stunned.
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 as the lame man which was healed held Peter and John, all the people ran together unto them in the porch that is called Solomon’s, greatly wondering.THE KEY
The man once carried to the gate now holds Peter and John, making his restored agency visible to the whole crowd.
THE MEANING
The verse meets you where restoration becomes visible: in a body standing among others and a hand reaching out to hold them. The man once carried to the gate is now with Peter and John, while the crowd gathers around what it sees in wonder.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that receiving help leaves you only as its object: the healed man now reaches out and holds others.
THE ROOT
ἰαθέντος
iathentos from iaomai
GROWS FROM
ἰα- (ia-), from ἰάομαι (iaomai)
To heal, cure, restore to health
ἰαθέντος is a form of ἰάομαι, “to heal”; related Greek words name healing itself and its effects. The verse calls him “the one who has been healed,” making the change visible in the man the crowd now sees standing and holding on.
ALSO GROWS
iasis: Healing, cure
ἴασις
This related noun names healing itself, connecting the man’s changed condition with the act of healing.
iama: Healing, cure; a healing effect
ἴαμα
This related word can name a healing result, echoing the visible outcome in the man’s body.
κρατοῦντος
kratountos from krateō
GROWS FROM
κρατ-
krat-
To hold firmly, grasp, or retain
“held fast to” in this verse is kratountos from krateō. The word family connects holding fast with strength. His grip is more than incidental contact: the man who was carried now reaches out and holds Peter and John.
ALSO GROWS
kratos: Strength, might, power
κράτος
This related noun gives the act of holding a sense of firmness and strength.
krataioō: To strengthen, make strong
κραταιόω
This related verb links the word family to being strengthened, a resonance with the man’s restored ability to stand and hold on.
THE PATTERN
Restoration becomes visible to others and draws witnesses into wonder.
And he returned to the man of God, he and all his camp, and came, and stood before him. And he said, Look, now I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel. Now therefore, please, take a blessing from your servant.Straightway he rose, took up the mat, and went out before them all, so that they were all beside themselves and gave weight to God, saying, We have never seen anything like this.So the neighbors, and those who had seen him before as one who was blind, said, Is this not the one who sat and begged?THE THREAD
How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Set-Apart Breath and with power, who went through, doing good and healing all who were pressed down by the Slanderer, for God was with him.“Healed” here and “healing” in Acts 10:38 are forms of ἰάομαι (iaomai), meaning “to heal.” There the same root names healing among the oppressed; here, its visible result stands in the porch for everyone gathered to see.
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