What Does Acts 9:4 Mean?
And he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why do you pursue me?
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 he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?THE KEY
Jesus speaks from inside the people Saul believes he is only chasing.
THE MEANING
The voice names harm aimed at Jesus’ people as harm that reaches him. Its question exposes how violence can mistake its target while still reaching the one it cannot see.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that cruelty toward another person is separate from one’s relation to Jesus collapses here.
THE ROOT
διώκεις
diōkeis
GROWS FROM
διωκ-
diōk-
Pursue, chase after.
The verb beneath “persecutest” means to pursue or chase after; persecution is pursuit turned against someone. The repeated “me” places that pursuit inside Jesus’ own identity, so violence aimed at his people reaches him.
ALSO GROWS
diōkō: Pursue, follow after.
διώκω
This is the verb’s dictionary form: the same pursuit can describe following after, as well as persecuting.
diōgmos: Persecution, pursuit.
διωγμός
This noun names the hostile pursuit Saul directs at Jesus’ people.
diōktēs: Persecutor, pursuer.
διώκτης
This word names the person who carries out the pursuit Saul is challenged about.
THE PATTERN
What is done to the people bound to God reaches God himself, because their lives are not separate from him.
For thus says the LORD of hosts. After the weight, he has sent me to the nations that plundered you, for whoever touches you touches the pupil of his eye.And the King answers and says to them, Truly, I say to you, Whatever you did to one of the least of these my brothers, you did to me.If one limb aches, all the limbs ache with it, and if one is clothed in weight, all of them rejoice with it.THE THREAD
Not that I have already taken hold, or have already been made complete. But I pursue, if somehow I may seize that for which I was also seized by Jesus the Anointed One.“Follow after” translates the same Greek verb, διώκω (diōkō), as “persecutest” in Acts 9:4. The word holds pursuit in common; here, its direction and object have changed.
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