What Does Acts 10:39 Mean in the King James?
And we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree:
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
The Greek word translated “tree” also names wood and wooden stocks, keeping the violence done to Jesus tangible inside the image itself.
THE MEANING
Here, the testimony holds Jesus’ works and the violence done to his body together. As you read, his execution remains part of what is witnessed: he is slain and hanged on wood, not remembered only through what he does.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that testimony to Jesus can speak of his works while omitting his bodily execution breaks against this verse; it names both.
THE ROOT
ξύλον
xylon
GROWS FROM
ξύλ-
Wood or timber; by extension, a tree or wooden object.
The Greek noun can name a living tree, timber, or a wooden implement. Elsewhere the same word is translated “stocks,” so here “tree” keeps the material of the execution concrete and lets the word’s wider range echo with bodily confinement.
ALSO GROWS
xylina: Wooden; made of wood.
ξύλινα
In 2 Timothy 2:20, this form describes vessels of wood, making the material sense of the root explicit.
xylon: Stocks; a wooden restraint.
ξύλον
In Acts 16:24, the same noun names the stocks that hold Paul and Silas, linking the word for execution wood with bodily confinement.
μάρτυρες
martyres
GROWS FROM
μαρτυρ-
To bear witness or testify.
This word-family names both the person who testifies and the testimony itself. The English “martyr” comes from the same Greek family, whose sense later carries the cost of dying for testimony; here, “witnesses” means witnesses, and the verse places their testimony beside the killing.
ALSO GROWS
martyria: Testimony or witness.
μαρτυρία
The related noun shows that the root can name not just the witness but the account being borne.
martyreō: To testify or bear witness.
μαρτυρέω
This verb names the act behind “we are witnesses”: the testimony here includes both what Jesus did and what was done to him.
THE PATTERN
Scripture makes the tree where a body is exposed the hinge between death’s curse and deliverance.
And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree: His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day; (for he that is hanged is accursed of God;) that thy land be not defiled, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:THE THREAD
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:Galatians uses the same Greek word, ξύλον (xylon), for the tree. It connects the exposed wood in this testimony to the language of curse and deliverance.
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