What Does Acts 16:22 Mean in the King James?
And the multitude rose up together against them: and the magistrates rent off their clothes, and commanded to beat them.
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 command carries its weapon inside its verb: this is not a vague beating, but a rod-striking.
THE MEANING
The sequence remains visible now: a united crowd’s opposition becomes official bodily force, clothing is torn away, then a beating is ordered. The order makes the magistrates participants in the violence, not observers of it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The false belief is that collective outrage becomes just when officials authorize it; here, authority orders the violence itself.
THE ROOT
ῥαβδίζειν
rhabdizein
GROWS FROM
ῥαβδ-
rhabd-
Rod; the related verb means to strike with rods.
The English “beat” can sound nonspecific, but the Greek verb names rod-striking: the instrument is built into the action. The same chapter calls the magistrates’ attendants “rod-bearers” in Acts 16:35, linking the beating and the later order to release the prisoners through the same chain of authority.
ALSO GROWS
rhabdos: Rod, staff
ῥάβδος
The noun names the instrument contained in the verb for beating.
rhabdouchos: Rod-bearer; an attendant who carries a rod
ῥαβδοῦχος
Acts 16:35 uses this related word for the magistrates’ attendants, keeping the rod and official command within the same scene.
THE PATTERN
Collective hostility can become sanctioned bodily violence when those in authority enforce it.
And they conspired against him, and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the house of the LORD.And so Pilate, willing to content the people, released Barabbas unto them, and delivered Jesus, when he had scourged him, to be crucified.Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord,THE THREAD
Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep;The Greek word behind “beaten with rods” shares the rod-root in Acts 16:22. This verse makes explicit the physical violence contained in the shorter phrase “commanded to beat them.”
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