What Does Acts 7:57 Mean?
Then they cried out with a loud voice, and held shut their ears, and rushed upon him with one passion.
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
Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord,THE KEY
The crowd makes refusal audible and physical at once: it cries loudly, shuts its ears, and moves against the speaker as one.
THE MEANING
A voice confronts the crowd, and refusal becomes active: the crowd raises its own sound, shuts its ears, then moves together against the speaker. Its agreement is a shared passion, not proof that anyone has listened.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A crowd’s agreement means the truth has been heard and weighed.
THE ROOT
συνέσχον
syneschon from synechō
GROWS FROM
ἔχω (echō), joined with σύν (syn-)
To have or hold; with syn-, to hold together or press.
“held shut” in this verse is syneschon from synechō. The verb describes an active holding of the ears shut. English “stopped” can sound like a simple result; the Greek keeps the act of holding in view as the crowd closes itself to the voice.
ALSO GROWS
katechō: Hold fast, retain
κατέχω
The same ἔχω seed appears with kata-, showing how a compound can make holding an act of keeping or retaining.
apechō: Hold off, keep away
ἀπέχω
With apo-, the same holding idea turns toward distance; the shared seed stays visible even as the prefix changes its direction.
THE PATTERN
When a group shuts out a voice, shared refusal can harden into coordinated harm.
But they refused to bend the ear, and turned a shoulder aside, and made their ears heavy so they would not hear and respond.Pilate said to them, Then what should I do with Jesus, who is called the Anointed One? They all said to him, Let him be crucified.Then from that day forward they took counsel together to put him to death.THE THREAD
These all held fast with one passion in prayer and pleading, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.The same Greek adverb, ὁμοθυμαδόν (homothymadon), means “with one passion” in both verses. Here it describes people united in prayer; in Acts 7:57, the same shared drive carries a crowd toward violence.
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