What Does Acts 16:23 Mean in the King James?
And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailor to keep them safely:
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 prison, the jailer, and the command to keep them securely all turn the language of guarding into an instrument of confinement.
THE MEANING
The verse shows confinement as a chain of present actions: bodies are struck, placed in a guarded holding place, and put under an order for secure custody. Here, “keep them safely” describes the guards’ charge to prevent escape; guarding serves control.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that secure keeping necessarily means care: here, custody is imposed after violence.
THE ROOT
φυλακή
phylakē
GROWS FROM
φυλασσ-/φυλακ- (phylass-/phylak-)
guard, keep watch
The word translated “prison” belongs to a family about guarding: φυλακή (phylakē, “guarded place” or “prison”) names confinement through the act of keeping watch. The jailer’s title carries that same guard-family, so the place and its keeper are joined by the work of custody.
ALSO GROWS
phylassō: to guard, keep watch
φυλάσσω
This is the guarding word-family behind φυλακή, making the prison more than a place: it is a place organized around keeping watch.
desmophylax: jailer; literally, bond-guard
δεσμοφύλαξ
The jailer’s title includes the same guard-family, tying the keeper directly to the guarded confinement.
δεσμοφύλακι
desmophylaki
GROWS FROM
δεσμ-
desm-
bond, binding
The jailer’s title joins bonds to guarding. Even before the verse names the prisoners’ chains, binding is built into the name of the person charged with keeping them.
ALSO GROWS
desmos: bond, fetter
δεσμός
This is the binding element in the jailer’s title, placing bonds at the center of the custody being enforced.
desmios: prisoner; one held in bonds
δέσμιος
The same family names the person held, linking the jailer’s bond-guard role to the captive’s condition.
πληγάς
plēgas
GROWS FROM
πληγ-/πλησσ- (plēg-/plēss-)
strike, blow
“stripes” in this verse is plēgas. The word keeps the violence bodily and specific: these are blows, not an abstract penalty. The verse places repeated striking before the machinery of guarded custody.
ALSO GROWS
plēssō: to strike, smite
πλήσσω
This verb names the force behind the noun for stripes and keeps the action of striking visible.
plēktēs: a striker; a violent person
πλήκτης
The same word-family can name the one who strikes, showing how the language connects the blows to their agent.
THE PATTERN
Human authority makes custody tangible through force, designated holding places, and appointed keepers.
And Joseph’s master took him, and put him into the prison, a place where the king’s prisoners were bound: and he was there in the prison.Wherefore the princes were wroth with Jeremiah, and smote him, and put him in prison in the house of Jonathan the scribe: for they had made that the prison.And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.THE THREAD
And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one’s bands were loosed.The word translated “prison” belongs to φυλακή (phylakē, “guarded place”) from φυλάσσω (phylassō, “guard, keep watch”). The same guarded place is shaken open, its doors opened, and its prisoners’ bonds loosed.
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