What Does Acts 14:11 Mean in the King James?
And when the people saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in the speech of Lycaonia, The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men.
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 word “likeness” keeps a seam between appearance and identity that the crowd’s claim tries to close.
THE MEANING
A striking act reaches your eyes, and interpretation moves quickly from deed to identity. The people call the men gods who have descended in human likeness, giving their inference the sound of certainty. What is witnessed and what is inferred remain distinct.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A deed that appears divine proves the human agent is a god.
THE ROOT
ὁμοιωθέντες
homoiōthentes
GROWS FROM
ὁμοι-
homoi-
To make alike or like; resemblance.
The Greek form carries the sense “having been made like humans,” so the crowd’s statement holds identity and resemblance together. The word names likeness; the certainty that these men are gods comes from the crowd’s interpretation of what it sees.
ALSO GROWS
homoios: Like, similar.
ὅμοιος
This adjective names resemblance as a relation between things.
homoiōma: Likeness, form, resemblance.
ὁμοίωμα
The same word family appears in Philippians 2:7’s “likeness of men,” the verse connected below.
ἰδόντες
idontes
GROWS FROM
ὁρα- / ἰδ- (hora- / id-)
To see, behold, perceive; ἰδ- is the aorist stem used in this verse.
“saw” in this verse is idontes. Seeing is the sentence’s hinge: the crowd encounters an act and immediately perceives an identity. The verse shows how direct perception can lead to an interpretation that goes beyond what was witnessed.
ALSO GROWS
horasis: Vision, sight.
ὅρασις
This noun keeps seeing and vision within the same word family.
horatos: Visible, seen.
ὁρατός
This adjective describes what can be perceived by sight, the starting point of the crowd’s claim.
THE PATTERN
Visible likeness can prompt claims about hidden nature, though appearance alone does not reveal the source.
And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.THE THREAD
But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:The same Greek word family appears in “the likeness of men,” joining this crowd’s phrase to Philippians’ description of Christ in human form. Here it belongs to the crowd’s claim about Paul and Barnabas; there, the language of likeness is joined to servant-form.
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