What Does Acts 14:8 Mean in the King James?
And there sat a certain man at Lystra, impotent in his feet, being a cripple from his mother’s womb, who never had walked:
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 calls him “not able” in his feet, naming a specific incapacity rather than his whole identity.
THE MEANING
The verse makes a lifelong physical reality unmistakable: this man’s feet cannot support walking, and he has never taken a step. His condition reaches back to the womb, yet the verse does not declare that this history is the final measure of what can happen.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that what has never been possible must remain impossible.
THE ROOT
ἀδύνατος
adynatos
GROWS FROM
δύναμαι
dynamai
To be able; to have capacity or power.
“impotent” in this verse is adynatos. The Greek describes him as unable specifically in his feet; it names a bodily limit rather than a complete identity. The same word family also names ability and power, keeping capacity in view even as this sentence names its absence.
ALSO GROWS
dynatos: Able, capable, or powerful.
δυνατός
This related word makes clear that the sentence is naming the absence of ability in his feet.
dynamis: Power or capacity.
δύναμις
The word for power grows from the same family as “unable,” linking the man’s condition to the language of capacity.
περιεπάτησεν
periepatēsen
GROWS FROM
πατέω
pateō
To tread or step; with περι-, to walk about.
This is an actual history of bodily motion: he has never walked. The same word can also describe how someone conducts their life, but here the literal meaning lands with force because the sentence has already located the limitation in his feet.
ALSO GROWS
pateō: Tread or step on.
πατέω
It names movement through contact with the ground; this verse says he has never taken such a step.
katapateō: Trample or tread down.
καταπατέω
This compound keeps the same stepping root while showing how Greek can shape it into other actions of the feet.
peripateō: Walk about; also, conduct oneself.
περιπατέω
The verb can describe bodily walking or a way of life; this verse anchors it in the movement his feet have never made.
THE PATTERN
Restoration becomes visible when a body long held in immobility enters movement.
Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the sabbath.And he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God.THE THREAD
And a certain man lame from his mother’s womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple;Acts 3:2 uses the same Greek wording for a man “lame from his mother’s womb,” making this more than a thematic echo. In Acts 3, the once-lame man leaps and walks; that shared wording lets his restoration illuminate the lifelong condition named here.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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