What Does Acts 10:14 Mean in the King James?
But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Peter’s “common” and “unclean” are distinct labels, while the reply that follows locates the authority to redefine them in God’s cleansing.
THE MEANING
A settled conviction can stand in direct tension with the Lord it addresses. “Common” names what is treated as ordinary or profane; “unclean” names what is impure, so the categories are related but not identical. Peter’s certainty is sincere, yet the vision’s next word remains free to challenge it.
THE ROOT
κοινόν
koinon
GROWS FROM
κοιν-
koin-
Shared, common, or belonging to the ordinary rather than set apart.
Here koinos carries the sense of what is treated as common or profane, beyond merely something shared by many people. Its word family also names sharing and participation, revealing how a word for the common becomes a purity boundary in Peter’s statement.
ALSO GROWS
koinōnia: Sharing, participation, or fellowship.
κοινωνία
The shared root shows that “common” belongs to a family of words about what is held or participated in together.
koinōneō: To share in or take part in something.
κοινωνέω
This branch makes the root’s sense of shared participation audible beneath the purity category.
ἀκάθαρτον
akatharton
GROWS FROM
καθαρ-
kathar-
Clean or pure; the prefix a- negates it, giving “unclean.”
“unclean” in this verse is akatharton. Akathartos is formed from katharos, “clean,” with a privative prefix: it names what is not clean. The two labels are therefore not duplicates, and the vision’s reply addresses “common” directly by speaking of what God has cleansed.
ALSO GROWS
katharos: Clean or pure.
καθαρός
This is the positive form beneath “unclean,” making the negation in akathartos visible.
katharizō: To cleanse or make clean.
καθαρίζω
The same word family supplies the cleansing language in the vision’s reply.
THE PATTERN
Purity categories remain accountable to God’s distinction and cleansing rather than standing as self-authorizing human labels.
To make a difference between the unclean and the clean, and between the beast that may be eaten and the beast that may not be eaten.There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man.For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving:THE THREAD
And the voice spake unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.The voice repeats Peter’s adjective koinos (κοινόν, “common”) and answers it with katharizō (καθαρίζω, “cleanse”). The repeated vocabulary makes the pivot precise: Peter’s settled label meets what God has cleansed.
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