What Does Acts 12:6 Mean in the King James?
And when Herod would have brought him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains: and the keepers before the door kept the prison.
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 for the guards and the word translated “prison” share one root of watching and custody.
THE MEANING
Your circumstances can be tightly guarded and still not exhaust what you experience: this verse places sleep inside real custody. The restraints remain real, and they do not occupy the whole scene.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the lie that if every boundary around you is guarded, no part of you can rest.
THE ROOT
φύλακες
phylakes
GROWS FROM
φυλακ-
phylak-
Guarding, watching, or keeping custody.
The Greek word for “keepers” and the word translated “prison” share this root. The same word-family names both the watchers and the custody surrounding Peter, so the verse shows a whole system enclosing him.
ALSO GROWS
phylakē: Watch, guard post, custody, or prison.
φυλακή
This is the Greek word translated “prison” here, linking the place of confinement to the word for its guards.
phylassō: To guard, watch, or keep.
φυλάσσω
The related verb names the act behind the guards’ presence: watching and keeping custody.
κοιμώμενος
koimōmenos
GROWS FROM
κοιμα- (koima-), from κοιμάω (koimaō)
To sleep or fall asleep.
The ordinary verb for sleeping is also used figuratively for death, as in 1 Thessalonians 4:13. Peter’s sleep remains ordinary and real, while the shared word lets the scene carry a quiet edge of mortality.
ALSO GROWS
koimízō: To put to sleep or lull to sleep.
κοιμίζω
This related verb shows the same word-family extending from sleep itself to causing sleep.
koimētērion: A sleeping place; later, a cemetery.
κοιμητήριον
This later word derives from the sleep verb and preserves sleep as an image for death.
THE PATTERN
Sleep can appear within danger without making the danger disappear.
I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the LORD sustained me.Then the mariners were afraid, and cried every man unto his god, and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten it of them. But Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship; and he lay, and was fast asleep.And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish?THE THREAD
But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.The Greek verb rendered “sleeping” here is the same κοιμάω (koimaō) word rendered “are asleep” for the dead in this verse. That shared word draws ordinary sleep and mortality close together, adding a shadow to Peter’s vulnerability without suggesting he has died.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us