What Does Acts 4:7 Mean?
And when they had stood them in the midst, they asked, "By what strength, or by what nature, have you done this?"
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 had set them in the midst, they asked, By what power, or by what name, have ye done this?THE KEY
The question reaches past the visible act to ask both what ability is at work and whose nature it expresses.
THE MEANING
A visible act does not explain itself: the question asks what capacity is at work and what character or authority stands behind it. “Power” names ability; “name” opens the deeper question of the nature expressed through that ability. The reader is brought to the source beneath what can be seen.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A remarkable result does not, by itself, reveal its source; force and identity are separate questions.
THE ROOT
ὄνομα
ónoma
GROWS FROM
ὀνομ-
onom-
Name or designation; by extension, the identity or reputation carried by a name.
Here, “name” reaches beyond a spoken label to the nature and authority represented by it. The question asks whose character is present in the deed.
ALSO GROWS
onomázō: To name, call, or designate.
ὀνομάζω
Naming makes an identity explicit, linking the visible act to the one it represents.
onomastós: Named, renowned, or famous.
ὀνομαστός
A name can carry a publicly recognized identity, so “by what name” asks whose authority or nature the act bears.
δύναμις
dýnamis
GROWS FROM
δυνα- (dyna-), from δύναμαι (dýnamai)
To be able; to have capacity.
“strength” in this verse is dýnamis. The word behind “power” belongs to the language of being able: it points to active capacity, not only a display of force. Beside “name,” it asks what ability is at work and whose nature that ability expresses.
ALSO GROWS
dýnamai: To be able or capable.
δύναμαι
This verbal root turns “power” into a question of what can act through the deed.
dynatós: Able, capable, or powerful.
δυνατός
The related adjective describes the capacity that the question seeks behind the visible act.
dynamóō: To strengthen or empower.
δυναμόω
This branch shows capacity as something that can be given or made active in another.
THE PATTERN
A visible work is read by the capacity behind it and the nature it expresses.
Then he answered and said to me, This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel, saying, Not by army, nor by strength, but by my breath, says the LORD of hosts.You will know them by their fruits. Do people gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles?Jesus answered them, I told you, and you do not trust. The works that I do in my Father's nature bear witness to me.THE THREAD
And when Peter saw it, he answered the people, Men of Israel, why are you astonished at this? Or why do you stretch your gaze upon us, as though by our own power or reverence we had made this man walk?The same Greek word, δύναμις (dýnamis, power or capacity), appears here. Acts 3:12 separates the visible healing from the people through whom it appears; Acts 4:7 presses further, asking what ability and whose nature stand behind the act.
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