What Does Acts 4:24 Mean?
And when they heard this, they lifted up their voice to God with one passion and said, "Master, you are God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them."
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 when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is:THE KEY
“One accord” carries the sense of one shared passion, so many voices rise together from a common inward fire to the Maker of all things.
THE MEANING
Many voices rise to God from one shared passion; unity here reaches beneath spoken words to a common inward accord. The prayer names God as maker of heaven, earth, sea, and everything within them, holding every realm and its fullness within one act of making.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that unity is only surface agreement: here, one accord reaches beneath words to a shared passion.
THE ROOT
ὁμοθυμαδόν
homothymadon
GROWS FROM
θυμός
thymos
Passion, heat, or a strong inward impulse.
“with one passion” in this verse is homothymadon. The word joins homos, “same,” with thymos, “passion”: one accord is a shared inward passion, not merely identical words. The English phrase can hide the force of that common inner movement as many voices rise together.
ALSO GROWS
homothymadon: With one passion; with one accord.
ὁμοθυμαδόν
This is the word in the verse: many people speak from a shared inward impulse.
epithymia: Desire or longing.
ἐπιθυμία
This related thymos word shows the same inward force as desire; here that force is shared rather than private.
ποιήσας
poiēsas
GROWS FROM
ποιέω
poieō
To make or do.
“made” in this verse is poiēsas. The making-word reaches across heaven, earth, and sea, then includes everything within them. The prayer’s shared passion gathers every realm into one acknowledgment of the Maker.
ALSO GROWS
poiētēs: Maker or doer.
ποιητής
It names the one who makes or acts, bringing out the agency behind “hast made.”
poiēma: A thing made; a work.
ποίημα
It points to what comes from making, echoing the verse’s reach to all that is in creation.
THE PATTERN
A shared inward accord gives many people one voice in recognizing the fullness of what they hold in common.
A Song of degrees of David. Look, how good and how sweet it is for brothers to settle also together!And they, holding fast day by day with one passion in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, took their food with gladness and singleness of heart.So that with one passion and one mouth you may give weight to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One.THE THREAD
These all held fast with one passion in prayer and pleading, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.“One accord” translates the same Greek word, ὁμοθυμαδόν (homothymadon), in both verses. Acts 1:14 gathers people in prayer; here, that shared inward passion rises into a spoken acknowledgment of God as Maker.
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