What Does Acts 4:3 Mean?
They threw their hands upon them and put them in keeping until the next day, for evening had already come.
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 they laid hands on them, and put them in hold unto the next day: for it was now eventide.THE KEY
The Greek word for “hold” means guarded keeping, so the arrest is a keeping under watch whose stated limit is the next day.
THE MEANING
When a voice unsettles power, bodies can be seized and held under watch. This verse lets the force remain force: the speakers are put in custody until the next day, because evening has already come. The stated boundary is the next day, while the restraint itself remains real.
THE ROOT
τήρησιν
tērēsin
GROWS FROM
τηρέω
tēreō
To keep watch over, guard, or preserve.
The word translated “hold” belongs to a word family for keeping, guarding, and observing. Here that keeping is imposed custody: the speakers are watched and restrained, and the verse gives that restraint a stated limit, the next day.
ALSO GROWS
tēreō: Keep, guard, or observe.
τηρέω
The same root can describe watching over a person or keeping an instruction; here its sense is custody under guard.
diatēreō: Preserve or keep carefully.
διατηρέω
This compound uses the same root for continued keeping, showing how the custody word carries the idea of something held under watch.
syntēreō: Keep safe or preserve.
συντηρέω
The shared root can also describe preservation; in this verse, the keeping is coercive rather than protective.
ἐπέβαλον
epébalon
GROWS FROM
βάλλω
ballō
To throw or cast.
The phrase rendered “laid hands” uses a verb built on “throw” or “cast,” giving the seizure a physical abruptness. The verse moves from hands cast upon the speakers to their being kept under watch.
ALSO GROWS
ekballō: Cast out or drive out.
ἐκβάλλω
The same root describes forceful action directed outward, sharpening the physical force behind the seizure.
kataballō: Cast down or lay low.
καταβάλλω
This branch retains the force of casting, a sound echo of the bodily action in the arrest.
THE PATTERN
Scripture can name confinement plainly while leaving an opening for release.
He brings them out of darkness and the valley of deepest darkness, and tears their bonds apart.And behold, the messenger of the LORD stood over him, and a light shone in the prison, and he struck Peter on the side and raised him up, saying, "Stand up quickly." And his chains fell away from his hands.And suddenly there came a great shaking, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and at once all the doors were opened, and every one's bonds were untied.THE THREAD
And they cast their hands upon the sent ones and placed them in the public keeping.The Greek repeats both the phrase for laying hands on someone and the word for guarded custody. Read together, the verses make visible how seizure becomes a keeping under watch.
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