What Does Acts 7:16 Mean?
And they were carried over to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham bought for a price of silver from the sons of Hamor, father of Shechem.
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 were carried over into Sychem, and laid in the sepulchre that Abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of Emmor the father of Sychem.THE KEY
“Carried over” and “laid” share the Greek root meaning “to place,” making burial one movement from transfer to belonging.
THE MEANING
The line holds a body in two movements: it is carried across, then laid in a named grave. Kinship, purchase, and place remain attached to the dead, so the body is not presented as anonymous matter. Its wording leaves a seam beside Genesis: Shechem’s purchase names Jacob, while Abraham’s burial purchase names Machpelah.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that burial makes the dead anonymous: the grave remains attached to names, kin, and a place carried through generations.
THE ROOT
μετετέθησαν
metetethēsan
GROWS FROM
τίθημι
tithēmi
put, set, place
“carried over” in this verse is metetethēsan. The KJV gives two English actions, but both Greek verbs grow from the same root meaning “to place.” First the remains are transferred; then they are placed in the tomb, the wording makes passage and arrival one continuous movement.
ALSO GROWS
metatithēmi: transfer, move from one place to another
μετατίθημι
This compound is the verb translated “carried over,” with the root for placing joined to a sense of movement across.
tithēmi: put, set, place
τίθημι
This same verb base appears in “laid,” so the transfer ends in an act of placement.
μνήματι
mnēmati
GROWS FROM
μνήμη
mnēmē
memory, remembrance
“tomb” in this verse is mnēmati. The Greek word for the grave belongs to a family of words for memory and remembering. The burial place is therefore more than a location: it carries the dead within the community’s remembrance.
ALSO GROWS
mnēmeion: memorial, tomb
μνημεῖον
This related noun names a tomb as a place that marks and recalls the dead.
mimnēskomai: remember, call to mind
μιμνῄσκομαι
The same word family links the grave to the continuing act of remembering.
THE PATTERN
A named burial ground keeps the dead joined to family memory and inheritance.
And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah, facing Mamre, which is Hebron in the land of Canaan.And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, they buried in Shechem, in the portion of field that Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for a hundred pieces of silver. It became the holding of the children of Joseph.By trust Joseph, when he was ending, remembered the going out of the sons of Israel, and gave charge concerning his bones.THE THREAD
And he bought a portion of a field, where he had stretched out his tent, from the hand of the children of Hamor, Shechem's father, for a hundred pieces of silver.Genesis 33:19 gives the Shechem purchase language echoed in Acts: a parcel of land bought from the sons of Hamor, Shechem’s father. It names Jacob as the buyer, while Genesis places Abraham’s burial purchase at Machpelah; read together, the verses reveal a seam where burial and ground are joined across two family memories.
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