What Does Acts 15:36 Mean in the King James?
And some days after Paul said unto Barnabas, Let us go again and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord, and see how they do.
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 “visit” carries the sense of turning attention toward someone and attending to their condition.
THE MEANING
A spoken word stays joined to the people who receive it. The verse holds proclamation together with returning attention, asking how those people are doing.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that speaking the message completes the work; the people who receive it still matter afterward.
THE ROOT
ἐπισκεψώμεθα
episkepsōmetha
GROWS FROM
σκεπ- / σκοπ- (skep- / skop-)
Look upon attentively; consider or keep watch.
“visit” in this verse is episkepsōmetha. This verb holds looking upon together with coming to attend to someone. Its relatives name this attention as oversight (ἐπισκοπή, episkopē) and the one who oversees (ἐπίσκοπος, episkopos), so the return includes noticing the people’s condition.
ALSO GROWS
episkopē: Visitation, oversight
ἐπισκοπή
The same family names the act of attending to people as oversight.
episkopos: Overseer, one who watches over
ἐπίσκοπος
This related word describes a person whose attention is directed toward others.
THE PATTERN
Visitation is attention that turns toward someone’s lived condition.
And Joseph said unto his brethren, I die: and God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land unto the land which he sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people,Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.THE THREAD
Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.Matthew uses the same Greek verb-family for visiting the sick. The shared word makes the visit concrete: attention turns toward a person’s condition and remains close to it.
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