What Does Acts 6:14 Mean?
For we have heard him say, that this Jesus of Nazareth shall tear down this place, and shall change the habits which Moses handed down to 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
For we have heard him say, that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered us.THE KEY
The name Yeshua speaks of deliverance, yet this report casts that name as a threat to a place and its inherited customs.
THE MEANING
“We have heard” marks an accusation, not proof that the words were spoken or that change means destruction. The names add their own texture: Nazareth echoes נָצַר (natsar, to watch or guard), and Moses is מֹשֶׁה (Moshe, drawn out), named here as the one who handed the customs down. The verse speaks now wherever a change to a sacred place or inherited practice is called ruin before its full meaning is heard.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A report that someone threatens what is sacred does not prove that change can only mean destruction.
THE ROOT
καταλύσει
katalysei
GROWS FROM
λύω
to loosen, unbind, or undo
“tear down” in this verse is katalysei. The Greek verb καταλύσει is built on λύω, “to loosen.” The charge pictures destruction as unbinding or dismantling, while the same root also appears in words for release.
ALSO GROWS
lysate: loosen; destroy
λύσατε
John 2:19 uses this form from the same verb family for the temple’s destruction.
apolyō: release, dismiss, send away
ἀπολύω
This compound keeps the root’s sense of loosening visible as release.
יֵשׁוּעַ
Yeshua
GROWS FROM
ישע
deliver, bring from constriction into spaciousness
The name Jesus carries Hebrew Yeshua, from ישע: deliverance out of constriction into spaciousness. That name’s nature stands in striking tension with the accusation that he will destroy.
ALSO GROWS
yashaʿ: deliver, rescue
יָשַׁע
This verb is the root’s action and gives the name its deliverance sense.
yeshuah: deliverance
יְשׁוּעָה
This noun makes the root’s movement from danger toward freedom a thing one can name.
ἔθη
ethē
GROWS FROM
ἐθ
habit, accustomed practice
“habits” in this verse is ethē. The verse speaks of customs shaped by repeated practice. The root reveals that what is handed down lives as a pattern people are accustomed to, not only as a formal rule.
ALSO GROWS
ethos: custom, habitual practice
ἔθος
This singular form is the lemma behind the verse’s plural ἔθη.
ethizō: accustom, habituate
ἐθίζω
This related form shows the repeated practice through which a custom takes hold.
THE PATTERN
Words about loosening inherited sacred structures can be heard as destruction before their full claim is understood.
Why have you prophesied in the nature of the LORD, saying, "This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be emptied, with none settling in it?" And all the people gathered against Jeremiah in the house of the LORD.Do not think that I came to loosen the instruction or the prophets. I came not to loosen, but to fill.Jesus answered and said to them, Unbind this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.THE THREAD
Jesus answered and said to them, Unbind this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.Acts uses καταλύσει (katalysei, “will destroy”), built on λύω (lyō, “loosen”); John uses λύσατε (lysate, “loosen” or “destroy”), from the same root. The shared word holds dismantling and loosening together, while John’s sentence places raising beside them.
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