What Does Acts 4:15 Mean?
But when they had commanded them to step outside the council, they cast their words together among themselves.
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
But when they had commanded them to go aside out of the council, they conferred among themselves,THE KEY
Their “conference” is a bringing together, and it begins only after the witnesses are sent out.
THE MEANING
You see a group remove outside voices before interpreting what it has heard. Its members gather their thoughts in private, and what they say next will show what that gathering produces. The verse makes the room around a decision part of the decision itself.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Consensus does not by itself prove that a decision is fair or open-minded; agreement can form after witnesses are removed.
THE ROOT
συνέβαλλον
syneballon
GROWS FROM
βαλ- (bal-; present stem βαλλ-)
Throw, cast
“cast their words together” in this verse is syneballon. The verb joins “together” with the image of throwing or bringing things together: they assemble matters to compare and deliberate. The same verb can describe pondering or meeting, so “conferred” carries a wider sense of bringing things into relation; here, who is outside the room matters to that process.
ALSO GROWS
cast out: Throw or drive out
ἐκβάλλω
This compound shares the βάλλ- (bal-) seed, whose meaning is throw or cast; a prefix directs the action outward.
throw down: Cast down or overthrow
καταβάλλω
The same root keeps its concrete throwing sense, while the prefix directs the action downward.
THE PATTERN
What people bring together shapes what they make of what they hear and what they do next.
But Mary kept all these words, casting them together in her heart.And consulted that they might seize Jesus by deceit, and kill him.Certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Porch clashed with him. Some said, What would this seed-picker want to say? Others said, He seems to be a herald of foreign gods, because he brought good news of Jesus and of the standing up again.THE THREAD
But Mary kept all these words, casting them together in her heart.One Greek verb links the council’s “conferred” with Mary’s “pondered”: both describe bringing things together. Here the apostles are outside the room, while Mary holds the events in her heart; the shared word draws attention to what is gathered and whose voices are present.
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