What Does Acts 4:29 Mean?
And now, LORD, look upon their threats, and give your servants to speak your word with all boldness.
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 now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word,THE KEY
The prayer names the threat without pretending it is gone, then asks for open speech while it remains in view.
THE MEANING
A threat is named plainly; it does not become the final limit on speech. Boldness here is requested as a gift, so open speech remains possible while danger is still in view. The verse holds clear attention to risk and the wish to speak in the same sentence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that danger must disappear before anything can be said openly: the request for bold speech comes while the threats are still in view.
THE ROOT
παρρησία
parrēsia
GROWS FROM
παρρησι- (the παρρησία word-family)
Frankness and freedom of speech; speaking openly.
“boldness” in this verse is parrēsia. The Greek noun παρρησία (parrēsia, frankness or freedom of speech) is commonly analyzed through πᾶς (pas, all) and ῥῆσις (rhēsis, speech), giving it the sense of speaking openly or without reserve. Its related verb παρρησιάζομαι (parrēsiazomai, speak freely) points to an opened voice, not merely an inward feeling of courage.
ALSO GROWS
rhēsis: Speech, utterance
ῥῆσις
The speech element shows that παρρησία concerns what can be said aloud, not only a private feeling.
parrēsiazomai: Speak freely, speak openly
παρρησιάζομαι
This related verb names the action the servants ask to carry out: speaking the message without concealment.
δός
dos
GROWS FROM
δο-/δω- (the δίδωμι word-family)
Give; bestow.
The imperative δός (dos, give) makes the plea concrete: “grant” is a request to give. The capacity for open speech is sought as something received, even while the threat is explicitly present.
ALSO GROWS
didōmi: Give, bestow
δίδωμι
This is the verb family behind δός; the servants ask for bold speech to be given to them.
dosis: Giving, gift
δόσις
This branch reinforces the verse’s picture of bold speech as received rather than self-produced.
dōron: Gift
δῶρον
The gift language illuminates the request: open speech is something they ask the Lord to provide.
THE PATTERN
A voice carrying a message is pictured as opened and unwithheld rather than kept behind the lips.
I bring good news of alignment in the great assembly. Here, I do not hold my lips shut. O LORD, you perceive.Cry aloud, do not hold back, lift your voice like a ram's horn, and declare to my people their rebellion, and the house of Jacob their shortcomings.And for me, that a word may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, so that I may make known with open speech the sealed thing of the gospel.THE THREAD
Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and grasped that they were unlettered and ordinary men, they marveled, and they knew them, that they had been with Jesus.Acts 4:13 uses the same Greek word, παρρησία (parrēsia, frankness of speech), for the boldness already visible in Peter and John. Acts 4:29 asks for that same open speech while the threats are in view.
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