What Does Acts 8:2 Mean?
And reverent men carried Stephen to his burial, and beat their breasts over him in great mourning.
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 devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him.THE KEY
The verse makes grief embodied and communal: Stephen is carried together, while “lamentation” carries the root sense of striking or beating.
THE MEANING
Your grief does not cancel reverence: care for the dead and sorrow among the living can occupy the same gathering. The verse gives mourning a visible place in the honoring of a life.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that devotion requires composure dissolves here: the devout men make great lamentation.
THE ROOT
κοπετόν
kopetón
GROWS FROM
κοπ-
kop-
Strike or beat; in mourning, beat the breast.
The KJV’s “lamentation” can sound like an inward feeling, but κοπετόν names an act of mourning whose stem comes from κόπτω (kóptō), “to strike, beat.” Grief here is not abstract: it is given a body and witnessed by others.
ALSO GROWS
kóptō: Strike, beat; cut off.
κόπτω
The verb carries the bodily force that English can hide inside “lamentation.”
ekóptonto: They beat themselves in grief.
ἐκόπτοντο
Luke 23:27 uses this same stem for public mourning, making bodily grief visible.
συνεκόμισαν
synekómisan
GROWS FROM
συν + κομίζω (syn + komízō)
Together + carry or bring.
“carried” in this verse is synekómisan. The verb folds συν (syn, “together”) into κομίζω (komízō, “carry, bring”), making the carrying communal. English gives the destination, burial; Greek also lets the shared bearing show through.
ALSO GROWS
komízō: Carry, bring, convey.
κομίζω
This is the base verb within the act of bearing Stephen away.
synkomízō: Carry together; in this context, bear away for burial.
συγκομίζω
The compound makes burial a shared act of care.
Στέφανον
Stéphanon
GROWS FROM
στέφω
stéphō
Encircle, crown.
Stephen’s name is the Greek Στέφανος (Stéphanos), meaning “crown” or “wreath.” The verse holds that name of honor alongside the body carried to burial and the grief of those who remain.
ALSO GROWS
stéphanos: Crown, wreath.
στέφανος
This is the Greek word behind Stephen’s name, carrying an image of honor.
stephanóō: Crown, encircle with a crown.
στεφανόω
This related verb keeps the name’s crown image active.
THE PATTERN
Grief is given visible form and shared company rather than treated as a private failure.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to leap.Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.Jesus wept.THE THREAD
A great crowd of people followed him, and women who also beat their breasts and wailed for him.Luke’s ἐκόπτοντο (ekóptonto, “they beat themselves in grief”) shares the κοπ- (kop-) stem with κοπετόν (kopetón, “lamentation”) here. Both verses let sorrow take an embodied, public form.
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