What Does Acts 5:28 Mean?
Saying, Did we not strictly charge you not to teach in this nature? And look, you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man's blood upon us.
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
Saying, Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.THE KEY
The command to silence the name becomes its witness: the accusers themselves say its teaching has filled Jerusalem.
THE MEANING
A command may draw a boundary around speech, while the accusation itself reveals how far the message has spread. “Filled” makes the city a measure of that reach; then the charge turns to the blood they say is being brought upon them. The verse holds suppression and exposure together: the attempt to shut the name out makes its public presence unmistakable.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that commanding a message to stop makes it absent; the accusers say it has filled the city.
THE ROOT
πεπληρώκατε
peplērōkate
GROWS FROM
πληρ-
πληρ- (plēr-): fill or bring to fullness.
“filled” in this verse is peplērōkate. The Greek verb pictures Jerusalem brought to fullness by the teaching. Its root also names the state of being full, so the accusation describes more than scattered speech: it claims the city has become saturated with the message.
ALSO GROWS
plērēs: full, complete
πλήρης
This adjective names the state the verb produces; the accusation presents Jerusalem as full of the teaching.
plērōma: fullness, that which fills
πλήρωμα
This noun makes the root’s idea of fullness explicit, connecting the act of filling with the resulting fullness.
ὀνόματι
onomati
GROWS FROM
ὀνομ-
ὀνομ- (onom-): name and the identity by which someone or something is known.
“nature” in this verse is onomati. The phrase “in this name” carries the man’s identity and character, not merely a spoken label. The command targets teaching carried under that identity, and the accusation treats the teaching as publicly representing him.
ALSO GROWS
onoma: name
ὄνομα
This is the noun in its basic form; it ties the teaching to the identity it carries.
onomazō: name, call by name
ὀνομάζω
This verb shows the same family at work in naming or identifying someone.
διδάσκειν
didaskein
GROWS FROM
διδασκ-/διδαχ-
διδασκ- (didask-) / διδαχ- (didach-): teach or instruct; the verb and noun forms belong to the same Greek word family.
The verse uses this teaching-family first in the prohibition and again in the accusation. The speakers are forbidden to teach, then accused of filling the city with that teaching; the accusation itself measures the message’s reach.
ALSO GROWS
didaskō: teach, instruct
διδάσκω
This verb shares the teaching stem and names the activity the command prohibits.
didachē: teaching, instruction
διδαχή
This noun is the same word family in the accusation that the city has been filled with their doctrine.
THE PATTERN
A witness carried through speech can fill public life even when authority commands silence.
For we cannot keep from speaking what we have perceived and heard.So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but shall do what I delight in, and shall break through in the thing to which I sent it.In this I bear ill, even unto bonds, as one who works ill; but the word of God is not bound.THE THREAD
And from his fullness we have all taken, and favor for favor.“Filled” and “fulness” belong to the same Greek root family: πληρ- (plēr-, fill or bring to fullness) and πλήρωμα (plērōma, fullness). Acts presents the city as filled with teaching; John speaks of fullness as something received.
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