What Does Acts 7:58 Mean?
And they threw him out of the city and stoned him, and the witnesses laid down their cloaks at the feet of a young man called Saul.
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 cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul.THE KEY
The Greek uses the same throwing-root to cast Stephen outside the city and hurl stones at him, binding expulsion and execution into one act.
THE MEANING
The verse exposes how a community can turn testimony into violence: Stephen is cast beyond the city’s boundary and his body is made the target. The witnesses’ clothes gather at Saul’s feet, placing him within the visible scene of the killing. The violence is public and carried out in the presence of witnesses.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this dissolves is that violence becomes righteous merely because it is public or backed by witnesses.
THE ROOT
ἐκβαλόντες
ekbalontes
GROWS FROM
βάλλω
βάλλω (ballō) means to throw, cast, or hurl.
“cast him out” in this verse is ekbalontes. The Greek binds the expulsion and the stoning with the same throwing-root: Stephen is thrown outside, then stones are thrown at him. English makes these sound like separate kinds of action, while the verse’s verbs keep them within one escalating act of casting.
ALSO GROWS
ekballō: Cast out; throw outside.
ἐκβάλλω
This is the verb used for driving Stephen out of the city; ἐκ- marks movement out.
lithoboleō: Throw stones at; stone.
λιθοβολέω
The next act belongs to the same βαλ-/βολ- throwing family, so the verse moves from throwing Stephen out to throwing stones at him.
μάρτυρες
martyres
GROWS FROM
μαρτυρ
The μαρτυρ (martyr) stem carries the sense of witnessing and bearing testimony.
The Greek word-family names witnesses, testimony, and the act of testifying. Here the witnesses’ garments lie at Saul’s feet as the killing unfolds, keeping testimony bound to visible participation.
ALSO GROWS
martyreō: Bear witness; testify.
μαρτυρέω
This verb makes explicit the testimony carried within the noun used for the witnesses.
martyria: Testimony; witness.
μαρτυρία
The verse’s witnesses stand within a word-family that also names the testimony they bear.
ἀπέθεντο
apethento
GROWS FROM
τίθημι
τίθημι (tithēmi) means to put, place, or set.
“laid down” in this verse is apethento. The Greek verb means to put off or lay aside: the witnesses remove their garments and set them beside Saul. The detail makes the clothing part of the scene’s physical arrangement, with Saul positioned at the place where the witnesses have laid it.
ALSO GROWS
apotithēmi: Put off; lay aside.
ἀποτίθημι
This compound supplies the verb behind the witnesses’ action; ἀπο- adds the sense of putting away or off.
epitithēmi: Lay upon; place onto.
ἐπιτίθημι
This compound shares the τίθημι root and shows the same basic act of putting or placing, directed onto something.
THE PATTERN
Public violence casts a person beyond the community’s boundary and makes the body bear the community’s verdict.
And two men, sons of Belial, came in and settled before him, and the men of Belial bore witness against him, even against Naboth, before the people, saying, Naboth blessed God and the king. Then they brought him out of the city, and stoned him with stones, and he died.And they rose up and threw him out of the city, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, so that they might throw him down the cliff.But Jews came there from Antioch and Iconium, and having persuaded the crowds and stoned Paul, they dragged him outside the city, supposing he had died.THE THREAD
And when the blood of your witness Stephen was poured out, I myself was standing over, consenting to his death, and guarding the cloaks of those lifting him out of the way.Acts 22:20 calls Stephen a “martyr,” but the Greek word is μάρτυς (martys, “witness”), from the same word-family as “witnesses” here. Saul’s recollection names him standing by, consenting, and keeping the killers’ clothes, bringing the garments at his feet into a direct account of his presence.
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