What Does Acts 5:22 Mean?
But when the officers came and did not find them in the prison, they turned back and reported,
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 the officers came, and found them not in the prison, they returned, and told,THE KEY
The prison’s guarded name is overturned when its keepers arrive to find the captives already gone.
THE MEANING
The prison stands as a place of watch, while the officers find no one there to watch. The expected occupants are absent, and the men responsible for custody carry that absence back as their only report.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that what is tightly guarded is therefore fully controlled.
THE ROOT
φυλακῇ
phylakēi
GROWS FROM
φυλάσσω
phylassō
to guard, keep watch
The word translated “prison” is φυλακή (phylakē), meaning a prison or guarded place, from φυλάσσω (phylassō), to guard or keep watch. Greek holds the watching inside the place’s name; when the officers find it empty, the failure is not only that the captives are gone but that custody has not held.
ALSO GROWS
phylassō: guard, keep watch
φυλάσσω
The verb names the keeping built into the idea of the prison, making the empty cell a failure of custody.
phýlax: watchman, guard
φύλαξ
This branch names the watcher whose work is to keep watch, sharpening the contrast with the officers’ discovery.
ἀπήγγειλαν
apēngeilan
GROWS FROM
ἀγγέλλω
angellō
to announce, carry tidings
“reported” in this verse is apēngeilan. The officers return as carriers of a report: the guarded place is empty. The word’s messenger-family makes their telling part of the event, as news of the absence moves beyond the prison.
ALSO GROWS
angelos: messenger, one who carries a message
ἄγγελος
The officers become the bearers of news about the absence they cannot explain.
angelia: message, announcement
ἀγγελία
Their report turns the empty cell into news that travels beyond its walls.
THE PATTERN
Guarded enclosures repeatedly fail to define the final location of the people inside them.
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
But a messenger of the Lord, through the night, opened the doors of the prison and led them out, and said,The preceding verse names the opening and bringing forth; this verse gives the keepers’ view of the result. Both use φυλακή (phylakē), meaning prison or guarded place, so the same Greek word moves from opened doors to an empty enclosure.
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