What Does Acts 4:14 Mean?
And seeing the man who had been healed standing with them, they had nothing to say against it.
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 beholding the man which was healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it.THE KEY
The healed man’s standing presence makes restoration impossible to reduce to an argument.
THE MEANING
The restored man stands beside them, and the opposition has nothing to answer. Wholeness becomes visible in a person, carrying its own evidence into the room.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that restoration is only a story someone tells dissolves when the restored person stands in view.
THE ROOT
ἑστῶτα
hestōta
GROWS FROM
στα-/στη- (sta-/stē-)
To stand or set in place.
This form describes a state reached and still held: he has taken his stand and remains standing. The word family includes rising or standing up, so his posture carries the shape of a life returned to standing, now visible to the people opposing him.
ALSO GROWS
stasis: A standing, position, or state.
στάσις
The man’s position beside them makes his restoration present and observable.
anastasis: Rising, standing up; resurrection.
ἀνάστασις
The related word for rising gives “standing” the larger resonance of a life lifted into a new state.
τεθεραπευμένον
tetherapeumenon
GROWS FROM
θεραπευ-
therapeu-
To attend to, care for, or treat; also to heal.
The perfect passive form presents a completed healing whose result remains: he has been healed and stands there healed. The word family holds care and healing together, letting wholeness appear as care made visible in a person.
ALSO GROWS
therapeia: Care, attendance, service; healing.
θεραπεία
This branch keeps healing connected to the care that attends a person.
therapeutēs: An attendant or one who serves and cares for another.
θεραπευτής
The related word for an attendant brings out the care contained within the word translated “healed.”
βλέποντες
blepontes
GROWS FROM
βλέπ-
blep-
To see or look.
“beholding” in this verse is blepontes. The verb describes active seeing: they are taking in the man as he stands with them. Their speech meets what their eyes can plainly see.
ALSO GROWS
anablepō: To look up or recover sight.
ἀναβλέπω
This related verb can describe sight returning, echoing the visible result of healing.
emblepō: To look at or gaze upon.
ἐμβλέπω
This branch sharpens the force of beholding as direct attention to the person before them.
THE PATTERN
Restoration becomes public evidence when its effects can be seen and heard.
And leaping up, he stood and walked, and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.He answered, Whether he misses the mark or not, I do not know. One thing I know, that I was blind, and now I see.Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with a ringing cry. Then they said among the nations, The LORD has grown great in doing with these.THE THREAD
And leaping up, he stood and walked, and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.The man first “stood” here and is still “standing” in Acts 4:14; both use ἵστημι (histēmi, “stand or set in place”). The repeated verb traces the restoration from the moment his body rises into a new state to the moment that state silences opposition.
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