What Does Acts 3:3 Mean?
When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked for gifts.
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
Who seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple asked an alms.THE KEY
The man asks for alms, and the Greek word carries mercy inside the request: a concrete gift is compassion made tangible.
THE MEANING
Need is visible and can be spoken plainly: the man asks for a concrete gift. The Greek word for alms belongs to the family of mercy, so a material request also carries an appeal for compassion.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The request is not merely a transaction for money; its own word-family joins material help to compassion.
THE ROOT
ἐλεημοσύνην
eleēmosynēn
GROWS FROM
ἐλεη-/ἐλεε-, related to ἔλεος (eleos)
Mercy or compassion expressed toward someone in need.
“asked for gifts” in this verse is eleēmosynēn. English “alms” can sound like a coin passed from one hand to another, but Greek keeps the word within the family of mercy. The request holds both an immediate material lack and an appeal for compassion.
ALSO GROWS
eleos: Mercy, compassion
ἔλεος
This related word makes clear that the request for alms belongs to the language of mercy.
eleeō: To show mercy
ἐλεέω
The verb turns the same word-family into an act: mercy is something extended to another.
eleēmōn: Merciful, compassionate
ἐλεήμων
This branch names the quality carried by the gift the man asks for.
THE PATTERN
Compassion becomes visible when need is met with something concrete.
But you shall open your hand wide to him, and you shall surely lend him enough for what he lacks.Whoever lends to the LORD shows favor to the emptied one, and what his hands have done, he makes whole for him.Then Peter said, Silver and gold I have none, but what I have I give you. In the nature of Jesus the Anointed One of Nazareth, rise up and walk.THE THREAD
And he said, The one who showed faithful love to him. Then Jesus said to him, Go and do likewise.The Greek word for “alms” in Acts and the word translated “mercy” here share the same word-family. Luke shows that family in action: mercy is something done for the person in need.
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